Book Shelves #3, 1.15.2012

Book shelves series #3, third Sunday of 2012: In which we revisit the master bedroom corner piece bookshelf in the southwest corner; two tiers + top shelf.

So, in last week’s engrossing installment our hero photographed and discussed some of the books in this bookshelf:

The post optimistically concluded: “So we’ve made it out of my bedroom” — but not so, dear reader, as post-Christmas/New Year cleaning up type activities led to a box of books, still in a storage room in the back of my house, needing to finally be shelved or ejected from the house. Said box:

Most of the volumes herein are aesthetically-challenged/of a certain sentimental value: lots of books from my youth and the youth of my wife; lots of books that taught me how to read, books that weirded me out, books that I hope my kids will want to read in a few years. The corner piece bookshelf had the most (only, really) free space for shelving; it’s also tucked away from public view where an eyesore like my crumbling copy of Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle won’t sore eyes:

I actually read Goines’s Swamp Man. It’s not the Deliverance knock off you might expect, although it is singularly horrific.

Some beloved childhood classics. Arthur Ransome, S.E. Hinton, various myths and legends, Roald Dahl, etc.:

Two books I hated. Hated. I keep them as badges of a strange honor, a sort of “I did it, okay?”:

Melville stories held together with duct tape. This was the copy my 11th grade teacher assigned; I stole it of course. I used it in numerous subsequent courses and the annotations I made are somehow (unduly) precious to me. I can’t part with it even though I have at least two other volumes of Melville stories;

Never sure where to shelve this RAW volume:

Not sure if you can make out the title of this one, but it’s Alcoholic Anonymous’s Big Book. I found it on the beach one night when I was maybe 17 or 18. It’s full of highlighted passages and annotations and I’ve always been intrigued at what led the former owner to cast it away into cattailed dunes, as if the person couldn’t wait to be rid of it but couldn’t bear to bury it in a garbage can. Anyway, I picked it up because I pick up any discarded book, but I’ve kept it because I don’t know why I’ve kept it. Maybe it helped inform my reading of Infinite Jest, I don’t know:

And here’s the “after” shot. I’ll try not to fret over re-shooting shelves again. But moving the box of books yesterday, knowing I was going to do the book shelf post today, I couldn’t help but photograph some of these as I went.