Book KEEPING and what it say about us

 HALLIE EPHRON: This picture (it ran in my local paper) caught my eye... Someone’s idea of home decorating with books? 

As a decorating idea, I give it two thumbs down. But, to be fair, this is a house which is rented – the people who flipped the books didn’t acquire them. Books are so personal, So I suppose this is a way to live with someone else’s collection of books.

Still, It reminds me of a restaurant meal I had somewhere in Ohio – scallops (4 of them) served with a mound of naked spaghetti. And it needed salt. And pepper.

I do think how you display (or don’t) your books is a bit of a Rorschach.  So today’s question: How do you shelve (or not) your books, and what does it say about you?

- On shelves or in stacks on the floor?

- Spine out or spine in?

- Sorted by category? In my house there are shelves of books about New York City, and shelves about birds, and shelves of illustrated chidren’s books, and shelves about cartoons and illustration, and of course shelves of crime fiction and other shelves of how-to-write books.

- Randomly organized or alphabetized? How anal are you? My fiction is all shelved by author. And I have several bookcases devoted only to crime fiction. I save the books I've loved.

- Any under glass? I keep the ones have resale value under glass. Especially illustrated children's books or signed firsts.

- Stacks in the garage waiting to go to Goodwill or your library's resale shop?

What does the way you keep your books say about you?

The Tidying of Books

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Recently our local online magazine had a guest piece by an interior designer on how to style your bookshelves. It wasn't until two-thirds of the way through that she said, "And you can even use actual books!"

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Really? Books on bookshelves? What a concept!

But I have to admit one can go too far in the other direction. While I have been writing, and focused on other things, the books have been breeding.

It's time to do one of my least favorite things--a book purge. These shelves are partly the to-read books, but other things--obviously--get stuck in here, too. And it's not that I want to fill the shelves with decorative accessories--I just want the books not to be stacked three deep and threatening life and limb every time I walk by!

I should probably mention that this is only one side of my office. There are NINE other identical bookcases scattered throughout the house, plus two full height bookcases, and the piles of books on both my desks and on every other surface in the sun porch. And Wren's books, which are stacked on a trunk in the guest room.

Marie Kondo's THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP is all the rage again, with her new Netflix series. It has erroneously been shared that Marie says you should only have THIRTY BOOKS, but she didn't actually say that. I checked. She said you should only keep books that "spark joy", which can be wildly different from one person to another.

But when books are your job as well as your passion, deciding which ones "spark joy" is daunting. There is a lot of guilt involved--books I meant to read but haven't, books I thought might be useful for research but haven't opened, books I thought I would reread...but, will I really? Am I ever going to find the time to read Wolf Hall? Or A Suitable Boy? Or a few dozen (um, hundred) others?

AND, I had been promising my daughter for at least a year that I'd help her clean out her living room bookshelves--because a large majority of the books were mine. Last Sunday, we tackled that. (There's another identical built-in case on the other side of her fireplace.) She ended up with ten full shopping bags to take to Half Price Books--and I brought home four bagfuls that I have nowhere to put!

So, dear REDS and readers, do you have a system for keeping books under control? Which ones stay and which ones go? Please share!!

PS: Here's Kayti's Marie Kondo-worthy "after" shelves!

Don't worry, book lovers. This state of bareness will not last!