This is something that I have been meaning to do for absolutely ages. A tour of almost all my bookshelves that are around the house.
I have a fairly extensive collection and as I buy other books, I have ended up with the occasional duplicate. Sometimes this is accidental, but not always.
I apologise in advance for their untidiness and mayhem.
Bookshelf 1
This is where almost all of my Terry Pratchett books are, there are others upstairs. He is joined by Neil Gaiman and then some travel and a few random genres. It is mostly tidy, but I need to read and clear some of here to make room for some extra Pratchett hardbacks. The Tsunduko on top are slightly out of hand…
Bookshelf 2
This started as a bookshelf to keep all the review copies that I have been sent and the plan was to have them in publication order so I could lay my hands on them quickly. I ended up stuffing books on there as I bought them and now it is a bit of a mess… At the moment there are all sorts of genres on here and it is double stacked so you can’t see the books behind.
Bookshelf 3
This is a newish bookshelf (from the fantastic people at shelfstore) and it is a mix of review books and others that I have found whilst book hunting. In front of it is a Tsunduko that is the same height as the desk with a right old mix of books too.
Bookshelf 4
This is one of four bookshelves that I had made by a guy close to where I worked in Addlestone. It is solid pine with fixed shelves and is really strong. Which is a good job as it is home to the substantial collection of cookery books that I (we) have. There are some American books that I bought from Brian and Cooking The Books years ago as well as books that we have inherited after family members have passed on.
Bookshelf 5
This is the latest bookshelf that was bought for me after Sarah complained about the number of books around the house. Promptly filled it and still have piles of books around the house…There is a mix of genres on here too, but the plan is to make it a travel / Dorset bookshelf as I sort and clear books out.
Bookshelf 6
Another shelfstore bookshelf that is tucked into the corner of the dining room. There is just travel books on here including most (but not all) of my Eland books.
Bookshelf 7
This is another of the commissioned bookshelf and this one lives in the conservatory. Again, a total mix of genres with one shelf of gardening books. A large number of these are to be read and passed on, but on the middle shelf on the second row are my Iain M Banks books and my Arthur Ransome books from childhood. This shelf has sun on it a lot of the day so some have faded.
Bookshelf 8
These are three billy bookshelves that contain almost all of my natural history and landscape books. There is a sofa now in front of one of them, so I can’t photograph that one. There are a few shelves that aren’t nature books, including one for poetry that is very nearly full, and three of just random stuff that I need to read and clear… There are even ornaments on this one!
Bookshelf 9
This is one of two bookshelves in our bedroom, the other has a lot of Sarah’s books and files on it so I haven’t photographed that. There are some of the bigger nature books on here, Flora Britannica and the like, as well as a random selection of genres, such as travel, fiction, science fiction and so on.
So there you have it. There are a couple of shelves of books that I haven’t photographed plus some odd piles here and there, but those are all my books.
There are several reasons for doing this:
1. To aid me in cataloguing all the books that I have (duplicates will be passed on so keep an eye on my Instagram page).
2. To give me the nudge that I need to sort and clear some of the books that I am never going to read
3. To give me a list of books that I want to read but that I don’t have any interest in keeping in my library.
4. And finally to be able to show you in around six to nine months, how much better they all look!
Wow! Impressive stacks and makes me feel so much better about my piles!!! 😀
Thank you. Glad to be of service!
Lovely! I think Bookshelf 1 might be made of IKEA CD shelves put together? I have got great value out of jamming those into various spaces. I think I might do this too but it needs to wait until some of the upcoming work on the house is done as there’s quite a lot in front of Fiction at the moment!
It is, Liz. A paperback is a similar size to a DVD so they are a perfect fit on those shelves
MASSIVE book shelf envy!
Really Penny?
Love this, especially as I believed you were all super organised and ‘proper.’ Sorry, Sarah. 😀
Not really Val (Or Sarah?). The problem is that I buy waaaaaaay to many books and end up having to shove them in. Slowly going through the process of clearing and sorting.
There but for the… go I! Loved seeing your bookshelves. Glad to hear you have an Iain M Banks section. Double stacking on Billies, though often necessary is a problem – if a book goes into the behind rows it’s unlikely to be retrieved any time soon. I only have 1 big Billie that’s double-shelved now – but the piles on the floor around have grown instead – should I double-stack the other big Billie again to move the piles? A quandary!
Thank you Annabel. I do. I even have a signed one of his fiction books too. I don’t mind double stacking, but I do want to know where some books are so am in the process of cataloging them at the moment, hence this excercise. I didn’t photograph the pile of books…
Paul, it made me very happy to spot my books at home on your shelf. 🙂
Glad to hear it, Neil. Hope all is well with you
Well, hurrah! You’ve made me feel like much less of a book hoarder now. You’ve practically got a library in your house (not that that’s a bad thing!)