Home library

My friend Victor and I went used book shopping today at Mojo Books & Music here in Tampa. And we even got coffee and listened to the obscure music like a couple of hipsters.

I love shopping for books. And it's become kind of a problem. I don't have anywhere to put them! I know plenty of you book people probably just laughed very knowingly, unless you just scrunched up your face and said out loud, "Why doesn't she just get a Kindle?" (No, I don't have some kind of policy against it. I just haven't done it. And even if I do, I'm sure I'll continue to fight the "no room for my home library" battle no matter what.)

So anyway, recently I realized that every trip to the used book store culminated in a frustrating game to see where I could squeeze in more books. I was getting tired of having to put books in front of other books so some got hidden, or splitting up genres because of shelf space, or moving whole sections of books around just to accommodate one new title. So I did some rearranging! And now I have a lot more space!

What did I do? I consolidated other media in my house. I put away some CDs that I listen to primarily through the mp3s I put on my player, and stored some DVDs, and (most notably) reduced the number of VHS tapes I have on my shelves. And I even used some of the VHS tapes to create extra bookshelves on thicker shelves so I could basically have double-layered bookshelves in some places! How's that for using my space wisely?

I now present to you . . . photos of my book collection!

First we have my YA and kids' shelves! The one on the left is mostly YA and kids' science fiction and fantasy (what I probably read the most of!) while the one on the right is mostly general YA and kids'. As you can see, some of those shelves are doubled up but you can see the ones in the back because they're sitting on VHS tapes. :)

Next we have more kids' stuff. On the left are kids' series that didn't fit on the other shelf, and some comics and graphic novels. On the right are my fairy tale books and a few more kids' books. Many of the fairy tale books are sleeping beauty versions or retellings. There are also a few spiritual books in there, plus a few classics and my small collection of plays and screenplays.

And here on the left is my collection of New Age/Paganism/Craft books, and on the right is my cookbook collection. (It's a little messy!)

And here we have a big collection of fantasy and science fiction. Actually behind the ones on the right there is more sort of "classic" science fiction and some horror (Stephen King stuff).

On the left is my small collection of humor books, and then on the right I have a bunch of general and literary fiction with some classics. I put the classics I personally am a big fan of out here because it's my living room, and some of the classics that are hidden in my bedroom are the ones I won't need to get to often.

And this is my writing desk, so that's where all my writing reference books are--publishing guides, author books, grammar books, writing reference, language stuff . . . plus this is where I keep my art books, my science and social science books, and way up on the top I have some biographies. My middle school and high school yearbooks are also here.

There are a couple shelves I didn't photograph, but you probably don't need to see big piles of language-learning books, baby-name books, textbooks from college, or website development books. (They're basically things I don't need to access often so they ended up on one of the shelves I can't reach easily because there's a coffee table in the way.)

Putting books in their new homes is always fun. I got to do that again today and I'm always looking forward to doing it again.