Behind the Blog: Bookshelves Edition part 4

Now for the second of my primary bookshelves, the first bookshelf I bought after moving out of home.

This wonderful blue set of shelves are my fiction shelves and I sort it by location...mostly. The top shelf holds the older classics (Chaucer, Dickens etc), my selection of plays, which are primarily Shakespeare and the couple of poetry books I own. From there downward the books move through Africa on to England, Scotland, Ireland, Europe (I don't have enough to specify by country!), Russia and Asia/India. The larger shelf homes my special edition and signed books and below that the books travel through Canada down to the United States and down south to Mexico and South America and then on to a shelf dedicated to Australian fiction. The final bottom shelf is a mish-mash of music books, art books, and short-story collections.  In each country group I tried to organise the books in a basic chronological order with authors work kept together.

My signed books and comics

The Godfather special boxset, Paul Smith (Maximo Park) art book and Ducktor Who

A snapshot of my United Kingdom section

How wonderful is the wooden box that my The Godfather trilogy sits within? It was a christmas present from my mum one year, I remember knocking on the present while it was wrapped up trying to work out what the hell it could be! And the Ducktor Who has a special place in my heart, and not only because it's a duck dressed up like the Doctor! Tom and I had been dating for three weeks when I celebrated my 22nd birthday and he showed up to my b'day dinner with that duck, a graphic novel and a bunch of flowers. After three weeks his present was so 'me appropriate' and far more in-line with my personality than what even my family bought for me! It was one of those 'A-ha' moments for me, and it sits proudly on that shelf in honour of the wonderful relationship that's been right since day one.

So that concludes my bookshelf tour! Technically I have one shelf left but it's full of Tom and my research books and sits in our office and is a complete mess! I'd have to do some MAJOR cleaning, tidying and organising to get it even half-way towards being blog level presentable so it'll remain unseen. In case you're curious though it houses Tom's huge collection of game design, flash and programming books, our horror and writing non-fiction books, some journalism books left from my first year and a bunch of English reference books. Along those fun topics are a few photo albums, my box of past assignments (I've kept them all...no idea why though!) and some other office-y stuff. Exciting right!?

Behind the Blog: Bookshelves edition part 3

So this week we have one of my major bookshelves that houses a fair brunt of my books. Previously it held whatever books I could squeeze into any gaps that remained but a few weeks ago I decided to reorganise my shelves since it was becoming impossible to find anything. This set of shelves has become my genre shelf and features all my horror, sci-fi, fantasy and other similar style of books. Before I go any further I should probably correct myself by saying our bookshelves and books, since Tom and I have consolidated all our bits and pieces and they're all inter-mingling in these shelves.

 

This bookshelf was a 'gift' from a housemate when she moved out of town and while the collage makes it look like it's rather oddly shaped (which it isn't) it is in fact on a slight lean that frustrates me to no end! So basically the system on this shelf goes, from top to bottom, left to right: biographies, science fiction, travel and language, non-fiction, kids/YA fantasy, this month's to read stacked on top of the HP boxset, fantasy, horror, crime/mystery, and action.The problem with this shelf is that so many of my genre editions of books are from second hand stores and are hardcover and therefore huge. This made it difficult seeing as I usually try to put my big/heavy books on the bottom shelves and and if need be on the outer edges of the higher shelves. Since I was trying to keep everything in their sections that made it hard to organise the books by size like I'd like to so it isn't as neat and orderly as I'd like it to be. 

The Alien from 'Alien'

Terminator bobblehead

My gnome moneybox and pez dispensers

Harry Potter boxset and Harry Potter 3D glasses

Since this is my genre shelf it wouldn't be complete without some genre paraphernalia! On the top of the shelves I have a Doctor Who lunch box which I've converted into a first aid kit (get it?!) alongside our Terminator bobblehead and Justice league lunchbox. The facehugger form of Alien from Alien (and it's many sequels) guards the books from above and alongside my treasured Harry Potter and Chrestomanci books sits a small tribe of pez dispensers, elephants and large silver gnome. I love all these little bits and bobs and they fit so wonderfully with what I tried to do with the shelves.

Behind the blog: Bookshelves edition part 2

Welcome to week two! This week is one of my favourite shelves. It's a little eclectic but houses some of my fondest literary memories. 

On this shelf I have my graphic novels and mangas, my nintendo DS games and console, Sci-fi, horror and computer magazines (the computer mags are Tom's) and some of my children and YA novels. Littered around the books and book-like things are some souvenirs from overseas, drawing mannequins, my 21st key, a fishbowl full of matchboxes from around the world and a pewter cup marking my dad as rugby team champion for 6 years in a row.

Alice in Wonderland lunchbox and London Snow globe

Planet Hollywood Hong Kong and Caxton Brisbane matchboxes

A few issues of my favourite comic series

My 21st key and dad's Rugby cup

These shelves basically began as the place I dumped anything that didn't fit on the other ones and slowly it began to merge into the incarnation you see in the above pictures. As it moved from the shambles it originated as to the organised chaos it currently embodies it's become a favourite set of shelves both visually (I love the simple wood frame with the open back) and literary. When I'm in a reading funk I can always be sure that one of my graphic novels or kids books (one of my many Roald Dahls to be sure) will help me out of it.

Behind the Blog: Bookshelves edition

I love bookshelves. They add so much character to a room and personally I don't think any room is complete without a set of them! So I thought that now that I've finished my favourite covers Sunday series I'd start posting a few images of my bookshelves (as I have quite a few) and tell you a bit about them. You may have noticed a few weeks ago I asked for advice on the blog, twitter and tumblr about how to organise my shelves so I'll give you guys a bit of an update of how that went as I go.

So this first set of shelves is really just the one shelf. I have an entire side of my living room dedicated to my shelves and this one shelf was one that came ready assembled when we moved in to this house in February. It's just a little display shelf but I use it to store my book series boxsets and a bit of pop culture paraphernalia. In order to get all the image into the one picture at a decent zoom level I had to create a bit of a collage. It ain't perfect but it isn't half bad either!

 

So on this shelf I have my Frank McCourt boxset (Angela's Ashes, Tis and Teacher Man), my Kerouac boxset (On the Road, The Dhama Bums, The Town and the City, Lonesome Traveller, The Subterraneans and Pic), my Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide boxset and my Black books DVD boxset. Alongside the collection is a three-spouted Alice in Wonderland teapot from Tokyo Disneyland, an English mailbox money-box courtesy of my mum's last trip overseas and a framed picture of my sister and I as little kiddle-winks. Above the shelf is the production poster for the Christopher Salmon animated film of Neil Gaiman's The Price (In Production) which I received for sponsoring the project on kickstarter. 

I only recently hung this picture above my shelf as before it sat propped against the wall in my bedroom but I'm really glad I moved it to this location. Not only does it fill a gap that desperately needed filling but it really completes the space and stamps in fairly large letters who I am and what kind of reader I am. At least that's how it seems to me!

Stay tuned next Sunday for part 2 of my bookshelf peek, which will be the small set of shelves below this one that I fondly refer to as the purveyor of geekdom.