Whats on your bookcase?

[todwod]

Not much but a some college textbooks, harry potter series, and 'Always Looking Up' by Michael J. Fox and 'Shanghai Girls'.

 

[okstatecowboy]

Bookcase one: various cookbooks
Bookcase Two: Hardbacks, mostly Stephen King, Grisham, and Patterson
Bookcase Three: various education related titles, including textbooks for subjects I teach/have taught
Bookcase four: various paperbacks, mainly sci-fi and horror
Bookcase five: various books, mainly young adult/juvenile titles -as a teacher, I like to know what my kids are reading...
Bookcase six: used mainly for CDs and computer software


mikey

 

[TickTockMan]

My two biggest bookcases are filled with my collection of leather bound books. My smallest bookcase is filled with my collection of books on sexuality.

My other books are just lying around my place or in a box I have.

 

[ChickenGuy]

I'd personally recommend the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. If you've seen the movie that's loosely based on the book, completely disregard it; the film absolutely raped and destroyed everything good about the book. It was easily the worst book-to-film adaptation I've ever seen. The books are incredible, and if you're looking to get into fantasy I'd highly recommend you give them a go.

You must have read my mind, because I've been meaning to get round to reading those three books for well over a year now. I did watch the film version when it came out, but I knew, even without knowing the story beforehand, that it was a bad adaptation.

Well, guess what? Just an hour ago, I ordered the trilogy from Amazon! Would never have happened without this thread motivating me, lol! They'll be delivered to my door in a few days!


P.S. Loki, I also had a glance online at some of the titles in the Dragonlance series. As you say, the most well-known books, and the best reviews and the highest rated, are for the Chronicles and Legends trilogies. I may get round to buying them some time soon.

Two other fantasy authors that seem to be popular on Amazon are Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin. Don't know of them myself. Have you ever read anything from them?

 

[Zaphod]

SF Fantasy
Comparative religion
Buddhism
English Literature
American history
Academic gay stuff
Erotic gay stuff
Some general fiction, but not much.
Stuff related to my job.

 

[omminc]

First bookcase is nothing but Graphic Novels with ET sitting up top the bookcase. The second bookcase is full of art, reference, and comic books along with books I am currently reading. The third bookcase happens to be filled with DVDs and games.

 

[HoodedRat]

I have mostly books on my bookcases ... mostly.

 

[jasoncrew03]

Which one? Each nearly takes up an entire wall in my office/library and I have one for fiction books; one for non-fiction; one for medical, science and math related books (mostly textbooks); and one for photo albums.

 

[chrisw87]

Sorry for the poor quality.

Fiction:

I have more books in the closet.

I want that bookcase! its sexy and awesome

Good to see people with some stephen king etc. I realised a few months ago when unpacking that I had bought all of Richard Bachman's books as well as the "old stephen king novels"

I still need to get a few others though, wanting to read all the classics, but my word, Dostoyevsky is insightful, but its a chore to read! 1984 by Orwell is still one of my favourites though

 

[NineOfClubs]

A lot of gay fiction. Stuff no one reads any more.

Science fiction, farming books, cat books, herbal books, etc..

 

[star-warrior]

I wrote down a whole list, but it looked like a library catalogue. So, something of everything. I've got anglo-saxon to nonlinear optic fibre technology on the shelves. Classical Chinese to quantum electrodynamics.

 

[ChickenGuy]

Funny that this thread should re-appear - just yesterday, my dad and I were glancing at a few of the oldest books from the previous owners. There are a lot of spare rooms in our house, and we've got shelves upon shelves of neglected and ancient books that have sat around for decades (see my earlier post at #16)


So, there turned out to be, amongst other things:


- A collection of about 100 stamps from all over the world, mostly from the 1940s and 1950's.

- A book on British golf courses, from c. 1920, with sketches of men in old-fashioned sporting jackets and caps.

- A small encyclopedia from 1910, full of illustrations of things like plants, flowers, mechanical diagrams, etc.


And most interestingly, because it was the oldest book we found....


- An edition of the adventure story Swiss Family Robinson from 1891! I went through the pages, and there was hand-drawings of animals of all different sorts. Amazing to think that the book in my hands was 120 years old.


We only looked at a fraction of what there is - I should really get round to finding out what else we have.

 

[TickTockMan]

And most interestingly, because it was the oldest book we found....


- An edition of the adventure story Swiss Family Robinson from 1891! I went through the pages, and there was hand-drawings of animals of all different sorts. Amazing to think that the book in my hands was 120 years old.

Is it leather bound? Any chance you will post pictures of it?

 

[ChickenGuy]

Is it leather bound? Any chance you will post pictures of it?

It isn't bound - in fact, the whole book is very loose now, and some of the pages are nearly falling out.

The hard cover is very faded and darkened, so I don't know if you'd see much from a photo.

I seriously doubt that it's the oldest book in that room, to be honest.

Now you've got me in the mood for a full search and inventory of those shelves.

I'll post back on here perhaps tonight or tomorrow, and tell you what I find.

 

[TickTockMan]

It isn't bound - in fact, the whole book is very loose now, and some of the pages are nearly falling out.

The hard cover is very faded and darkened, so I don't know if you'd see much from a photo.

I seriously doubt that it's the oldest book in that room, to be honest.

Now you've got me in the mood for a full search and inventory of those shelves.

I'll post back on here perhaps tonight or tomorrow, and tell you what I find.

I am geeking out here. I want to be there with you.


If you have the money and are in an area with someone qualified you should get the books appraised.

I have collected leather bounds for years and it is amazing how much some books can go for.

 

[freefall]

The only bookcase I have contains science books for elementary student, which are all, sadly, obsolete for years. The bookcase is left abandoned, I must say, covered in dust and plastic wraps.

I store books in my cupboards. One, which also functions as a telephone desk, contains my college books. The other one contains botanical books, mathematical books from my high school era, and paperbacks.

Comics and magazines are stored in the unused guest room, in boxes. I still touch them some time.

 

[jslvr05]

Travel Books - New York, Spain, Toronto, France, Italy, etc.

Classic Novels- Way too many to list, but I have Austen, Dickens, Alcott, Lewis, Bronte, etc.

Other Novels- from various time periods, but not "classic"

Decorating/Lifestyle Magazines- old and new issues of H&G, Traditional Home, Out, Genre, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, etc.

Lots of Nonfiction- books on decorating, architecture, science, economics, autobiographies

Cookbooks- I have lots of cookbooks, both old and new

 

[JOHN B]

Octavia Butler--Kindred----Black woman, married to a white man, is pulled back in time periodically in order to save an ancestor.......a plantation owners son. Each time she goes back, she ends up stuck there for a longer period of time. The first time, less than a minute, the last time, ...for almost a year.....
I have other books by O.B. also....mainly sci fi series, such as the PatternMaster series.

Chuck Palahniuk--Invisible Monster---Story told, in no particular order, of a woman who was a fashion model, who loses the lower half of her face in a bizarre accident. The story, told from random moments in time, is of her journey to find herself after the "incident". Her main partner in crime, is a pre-op transexual......
I have not followed his more recent books, but do also have "Choke", which was made into a movie that i refused to watch because I liked the book version so much.

Uncle John's Bathroom Readers--a series (Over 20 by now) of Odd Fact books....my favorite topic. Weird facts about history, places, and people. I have most of them. Books are divided into themes, and are for some reason located in the Humor section of bookstores (not the trivia section) even though they are books of True Facts.

Marlys Millhiser--The Mirror--Old book. Written in 1978! I found it in a used book store in the early 80's and have read it over and over (every few years) since then. Not sci-fi, not horror, but a like minded story. Woman in modern (1978, lol) times on her wedding day, switches places with her grandmother on her (same) wedding day 80 years earlier at the turn of the century. Due to a mystical mirror which has been in the family for generations. Lives out her grandmothers life while waiting for the mirror to return her to her rightful time. I am not giving anything away by saying....it never happens. Part mystery, part life story. Very well told, and I cannot help but pick this book up again every four or five years....(now that i am thinking about it, I might just read it again. My copy is so dog eared, it is about to fall apart.)....


There are a few other series/authors that I like, but I don't want to get carried away and hijack this thread, lol.....I will save those for a later post.

 

[ChickenGuy]

Now you've got me in the mood for a full search and inventory of those shelves.

I'll post back on here perhaps tonight or tomorrow, and tell you what I find.

Inventory finished! *dusts himself off*

Right, this is where I use JUB as an online notebook to keep a record of my findings.

Noteworthy books, from newest to oldest:


The New Pictorial Atlas of the World ( no date ) - This was fascinating, because looking at the maps, it's clear it was published before WWII. Germany is also called 'Prussia' and its borders are much further east into Poland; and the map of Africa is crazy, lol - it's all still colonial posessions, with names like 'French West Africa' and 'Belgian Congo' and 'Anglo-Egyptian Sudan' plus the old 'Abyssinia' and 'Rhodesia' are still there.

Encyclopedia of Needlework ( no date ) - It's clearly a very old book, but I couldn't find a date. It's full of text about sewing, stitching, crotcheting, embroidery, etc.

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo ( 1928 ) - This one has a wonderful cover of black and gold with swirling patterns and decorative fancy writing all in gold. It's the famous Hunchback of Notre-Dame story with Quasimodo and all that.

Flints: An Illustrated Manual of the Stone Age for Beginners ( 1926 ) - This is just a small paperback handbook like a pamphlet, with various diagrams and sketchings, etc.

Remarkable Women of France ( 1914 ) - A big book, this one, full of tales of the French aristocracy through history and mini-biographies of many a madame, mademoiselle, duchesse, marquise, etc.

The Shorter Poems of William Wordsworth ( 1909 ) - Not much else to say here.

Chats on English Earthenware ( 1909 ) - This is all about pottery, with drawings of kilns, jugs, vases, etc.

Whisperings from the Great ( 1906 ) - This is like a big diary, and alongside each date of the year is a collection of little poems and sayings for the day - mostly religious ones.

From Fox's Earth to Mountain Tarn ( 1906 ) - A book on Scottish wildlife and scenery, with descriptions of forests and rivers and glens, with red deer, eagles, ospreys, salmon, trout, otters, etc.

Handbook of the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1899 ) - This is a reference work for coin collectors, mostly just text right through. Wierd to think that when this book was published, they'd have had no concept of any coin from the entire 20th century.

Swiss Family Robinson ( 1891 ) - ( mentioned in my previous post )

I seriously doubt that it's the oldest book in that room, to be honest.

And it wasn't.

There are two older than it, and they couldn't be more different....


A Manual of Inorganic Chemistry ( 1874 ) - You'd easily miss this book, because it's small and inconspicuous. It's a little tatty and worn and faded. Really an academic book for professional study, full of chemical formulas and diagrams of apparatus that you'd see in a Victorian laboratory - glass cyclinders and tubes and rods, and using a flame to heat up mixtures and solutions, etc.


And finally, there was this truly GIANT Bible - the biggest book in the whole room, but it was concealed in a small cupboard under the shelves. It looks more like a wizard's spellbook to be honest. The date is given as 'MDCCCLXVI' - ( 1866 ) And I remember it now, because it came from my late grandmother's house when she had to move into care. I'd forgotten about it. At the back, there's a few pages of writing recording dates of births and marriages in my grandmother's family. My great-grandparents names are there and great-granduncles and aunts as well. And tucked inside, I found a small receipt from my great-grandfather's coal merchant business. On the back, there's his signature. My dad was very interested when I showed him - we'd both kind of forgotten about the old family Bible.


There we have it. But there's still two other neglected old bookshelves in this house, you know.

Maybe I should become a librarian.

 

[TickTockMan]

^

You have some nice finds there.