Bookshelves

“I had always thought of my books as fairly private things, not for display, but the ability to show them off seemed crucial to Gilkey. Then again, a wall in my living room is covered with bookshelves, and everyone who visits can see what I have read. If I am honest with myself, I must admit that to some degree my books are badges….” From The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

Only once in my adult life have I had the space to have all of my books out on shelves. Most of the time, the majority of my books have had to sit in boxes in storage units and closets or shoved under the bed. Even when all my books were out on shelves, I chose carefully how they were displayed.

My best friends were on the nightstand or on a shelf near my bed—the books I read and reread until they fell apart and I had to buy a new copy. These included Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and my Robin McKinley books.

The books that made me look smart were on display in the front room where people would look at them to see what kind of a person I was and am. Here I displayed poetry by Emily Dickinson and Pablo Neruda, classics by Dickens and Dostoyevsky (whether I’d read them or not), anthologies of Shakespeare and Poe, stacks of books by Southern Gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, and the translated classics like the Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno.

And now that more and more of my bookshelves are being taken over by baby toys and board books, I’m even more particular about what stays and what gets boxed up. I love to look at other people’s bookshelves to learn more about them by what they read. What do your bookshelves say about you?