what do your bookshelves look like?

haha, he could always open a store like i did! i don't even want to know what would have happened if i hadn't. that includes my first store in the 90s. i sold hundreds of my own books back then. i don't sell OR buy as many any more. just don't look in our attic at home. i SWEAR there are no books up there!

those rooms look great, josh, love that wall o' shelf.

Lots of different bookshelves around the house: films, music, politics, etc. These are baseball books, with, yes, a shelf devoted to James.

https://i.postimg.cc/bJkckbrf/shelf-1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/y8dMn2xP/shelf-2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Wz8yw7PC/james.jpg

Scott, this is now slightly out of date, but:
https://vimeo.com/591893523

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison)

holy shit!

AMAZING!!! so jealous of his lair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cIujCC3Do

you gotta see his books.

I posted this is another thread but it fits here too, heartbreaking amount of stuff probably went to the dumpster because even collector friends couldn't save the whole collection between them.

https://www.blackgate.com/2023/05/21/in-memory-of-a-legendary-collector-denny-lien-september-26-1945-april-15-2023/

I frequently wonder what I'm going to get rid of but I hear people saying "wish I hadn't got rid of that" all the time, and there are a few things I got rid of and bought again, so I need to become far more sane before I get rid of much more.

I would like to be less sane about books but there’s nowhere to put new bookcases in this place and I rent so new books sort of get wedged in places as it is. If I ever live someplace with builtins it’s gonna get interesting

Or if I inherit my dad’s stuff god help me

I hear people saying "wish I hadn't got rid of that" all the time

the possibility of later regret is always present when you get rid of a book. I've learned that such regrets are mostly grounded in a kind of nostalgic sentimentality rather than because you NEED the book for some purpose. it's almost always about the pleasant feelings you associate with it. One simply likes to know it is there on your shelf. In that case, it's like keeping your favorite stuffed animals and toys from childhood. Most of the value is in the memories and feelings, for which the object is a trigger. Once I understood this it became easier to dispense with the object and just revisit the memory, which takes less storage space.

My trouble is if I get rid of the object I am liable to lose track of the memory forever

I only have one bookshelf but it’s a doozy. Will post later

I'm not very sentimental about these things, the things I regretted getting rid of and bought again were really good books that I gave away in excessive enthusiasm for reducing my collection. But I think it was good to know that I can regret things like that and I'm a bit more careful now.

https://i.imgur.com/4H7RZg6.jpg

I was fascinated with the way those Vintage Contemporaries books looked when I was a kid.

Wish I still had that copy of A Fan’s Notes.

Lorraine Louie was the best

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-artist-whose-book-covers-distilled-the-nineteen-eighties

Never knew all that, thanks.

did this for books and records. it's not all the books, there are other shelves in the library not pictured.

https://i.imgur.com/Ry5ZrEp.png

I think James' video is an adequate answer to 'how many books is too many books?' because at the very least, if I lived to a 100 I'd still not make it through a collection like that. Still envious, though.

Here are mine (shot with my shitty, misted phone camera).

Lounge (these are double stacked, fwiw)
https://i.imgur.com/g4rTfPL.jpg

Hallway
https://i.imgur.com/OnIzjkt.jpg

Landing (cases do not include more boxes
https://i.imgur.com/LyOBfZF.jpg

Spare room (these were recently added when the to-read pile became dangerous, predatory)
https://i.imgur.com/EABFoHO.jpg

Pile by the bed
https://i.imgur.com/N1uXxER.jpg

There's another substantial shelf at the end of the bed but I can't get a decent photo of it. Probably about another 100 books on there.

Hallway caption should read 'cases do not include more books'.

I love Omar's metal shelving. Everything in one place(ish) is the dream.

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am -- and just reached a box labeled eagles / rockism (ftr "eagles" there less don henley, more dan dare)

interim photo below of shelves my friend luisa has designed and is building for me:
https://i.imgur.com/aTOpcja.jpg

will post more when they have books on them

it might not be good to place books right above that storage heater, perhaps make that a trinket zone!

delighted to see you’ve got the space your books deserve. it’ll be a handsome wall when you’re done. inclined to agree with calz on the heater. as well as curled and desiccated pages, any dust will be delightfully lifted and convected (i suppose that should be conveyed) around your domicile.

my solution tbh is just not to turn that heater on -- it's the library-corridor, you can wear a duffelcoat and mittens ffs

tfw you get them out of difft boxes in quick succession and realise that spike milligan and gary indiana *do* belong thematically next to one another on the shelves

ppl i have way too many fkn books abt music , every time i get find the "last box" with this label there's another one underneath

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-xLQG7WUAA6oOZ?format=jpg&name=small

my bookshelf is pathetic and did used to be rammed to the point of collapsing, but about 18 months ago I had a minor nervous breakdown and burnt about 70% of them. You can't beat a good old book-burning and drinking sesh as an alternative to going into therapy!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTESL4XXoAAtxGZ?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSvq8ykWQAIS5E1?format=jpg&name=small
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSvomN_XwAAg8yW?format=jpg&name=large

Love it : )

Here are the collecteds and the chapbooks
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3472.jpeg

Poetry A-Saijo on the shelves, to-be-read on top
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3473.jpeg

Poetry Scalapino-Zultanski
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3474.jpeg

Hodge-podge shelf of magazines, paper ephemera, found photographs, oversized poetry, and history books
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3475.jpeg

Literary journals and magazines, complete Shakespeare, Oxford Study Bible, Benveniste, etc.
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3476.jpeg

VHS and DVDs, music books, oversized art books, memoirs, ecology writing and trail guides, art, theory, anthologies-- all the stuff that doesn't have spines facing out is to-be-read or looked-at, as most are art books.
https://archive.org/details/img-3478_202311/IMG_3477.jpeg

Fiction, plus some oversized art books, object, and publications...and the complete run from a press I used to edit for, on top.
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3478.jpeg

Art books and records, the only shelf not in my little office
https://archive.org/download/img-3478_202311/IMG_3479.jpeg

Wow

Even when i was living out of a car, i kept a storage space. I'm glad I did.

Jesus, calzino :(

"book buying problem"

music books from north to south

https://i.imgur.com/h1JFkgs.jpg

south to north is more higgledy-piggledy tbh: some fiction, some art & design, some theory, music starts roughly at the arch*

https://i.imgur.com/JpO74cz.jpg

*the arch is the side of this little building, the corridor is literally a bridge between two buildings, this is the best flat ever -- two bits joined by a bridge, it's like venice here in plymouth

Jean Baudrillard, what did your bookshelves look like?

https://i.imgur.com/qFWNHot.jpg

If mark ever turns his house into a bookstore I’m going to ask him “are all of these your books?”

I really wish I had taken a picture of the double-sided bookcase wall dividing the upper floor of my cabin before that cabin burned down.

The shelves stretched between the cabin's support posts that ran down the middle of the room. When the shelves were empty you could see through them from one side of the room to the other, but when they were full they formed a wall so I had a guest room.

I moved out before it burned down, so I only lost a few of my books that I hadn't bothered to move yet.

(bumping thread so my bookmarks to now-deleted posts stop reporting thread is updated when it isn't)

just here to report that my shelves aren't actually metal but built-ins painted dark green to match the walls!

I feel better now about the state of my 13 year old son's room.

jimbeaux, in all fairness, i have been like this since i was younger than 13. also i refuse to throw away good cardboard, i just used about half of the empty boxes in my photos to ship things off today.