Your bookshelves

[Timewalker]

I had more shelves than this but I gave away most of my books before moving six years ago. This is one slate of my bookshelf. I actually have two bookshelves but this one would be the most interesting.

Those tribbles look hungry, so no wonder everyone looks like they're trying to get away!

Where did you get the crew? (love that Spot is included!)

This is similar to the shelf that my helper and her wife were putting together, when they decided that all the yellow-spined books should go together.

It's where most of my Star Trek books are, except the ones that don't fit. I have a few that are too big even to put on top, and of course the fanzines have their own shelf.

I made this one myself recently. Still need to stain and urethane it.

That is fantastic!

Reminds me of when I was in college and our economics prof asked everyone how many pairs of blue jeans they owned. This one girl said 47....in all seriousness. This was just after The Voyage Home came out. I thought to myself, Bet ya like Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins, don't ya?

Sorry, I don't see the connection between Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins, and blue jeans.

My answer to that question would have been easy. I've never been much of a blue jeans fan, so at that time I had a grand total of 2 pairs. And after my first year of college I noticed the unwritten dress code didn't seem as rigid as it was in high school. So I ditched the blue jeans and went back to normal slacks. Nowadays the only denim item I own is the tote bag I carry around. It's got a shoulder strap, and I can fit a lot of stuff into it.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Sorry, I don't see the connection between Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins, and blue jeans.

Spock called them "the giants"....being sarcastic about them being shallow as literature goes. Having 47 pairs of blue jeans is a tad shallow, too.

 

[Timewalker]

Spock called them "the giants"....being sarcastic about them being shallow as literature goes. Having 47 pairs of blue jeans is a tad shallow, too.

Why, if that's what she likes to wear?

 

[Pondwater]

Those tribbles look hungry, so no wonder everyone looks like they're trying to get away!

Where did you get the crew? (love that Spot is included!)


This is similar to the shelf that my helper and her wife were putting together, when they decided that all the yellow-spined books should go together.

It's where most of my Star Trek books are, except the ones that don't fit. I have a few that are too big even to put on top, and of course the fanzines have their own shelf.




That is fantastic!


Sorry, I don't see the connection between Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins, and blue jeans.

My answer to that question would have been easy. I've never been much of a blue jeans fan, so at that time I had a grand total of 2 pairs. And after my first year of college I noticed the unwritten dress code didn't seem as rigid as it was in high school. So I ditched the blue jeans and went back to normal slacks. Nowadays the only denim item I own is the tote bag I carry around. It's got a shoulder strap, and I can fit a lot of stuff into it.

Thanks. I made them all.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Why, if that's what she likes to wear?

Problem was, it was Mommy and Daddy's money and she was telling them she needed the money for serious college expenses. And she was very....self-satisfied in relating that bit of misdirection. Now, if they had been wealthy, it might not have been quite as significant. But, they weren't. She acted in a very shallow and frivolous way. Very irresponsible.

 

[Timewalker]

Problem was, it was Mommy and Daddy's money and she was telling them she needed the money for serious college expenses. And she was very....self-satisfied in relating that bit of misdirection. Now, if they had been wealthy, it might not have been quite as significant. But, they weren't. She acted in a very shallow and frivolous way. Very irresponsible.

So she told them she needed money for books and tuition and spent it on blue jeans?

 

[TrickyDickie]

So she told them she needed money for books and tuition and spent it on blue jeans?

She put it more like exaggerated lab fees and 'incidental' fees from specific courses she was taking....fees that didn't exist, or were nowhere as high as she made them out to be. Like 'skimming'. She was quite devious, according to what she related that she told them. It still amazes me the lengths some people will go to get what they want, even with their own family members.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

The question should have been, " how many pairs of shoes" . I would guess far more than 47.

 

[Snaploud]

She buys books because of the pretty colors and fancy spines... and doesn't seem to care if anyone actually reads them?

There's a website called Books By The Foot that sells books in bulk by color.

https://www.booksbythefoot.com/

 

[Timewalker]

There's a website called Books By The Foot that sells books in bulk by color.

https://www.booksbythefoot.com/

I can see somebody buying this stuff if all they want are theatre props, or something.

But the average person decorating a home? Just go to a garage sale or community library sale. It would be much cheaper.

 

[cosmic mouse]

This is similar to the shelf that my helper and her wife were putting together, when they decided that all the yellow-spined books should go together.

It's where most of my Star Trek books are, except the ones that don't fit. I have a few that are too big even to put on top, and of course the fanzines have their own shelf.

Yeah, I ordered it specifically for dvds, but the way it's put together I can't fit much of anything on the very top shelf , hence why that other, random stuff is shelved there. The shelf that the blu rays are on is what my dvds used to be on before I "outgrew" it.
The color coding of the book spines that your helper tried is "interesting"... aside from not being able to find anything I think the multi-color array of the different spines looks better, aesthetically, anyway. Large blocks of flat color don't do much for me I guess.

 

[Draculasaurus]

I got these modular pine ones used. I think thy might originally be Ikea, but mine were used in a clothing store that went out of business. It's great because when you attach them all together it's about fourteen feet long so plenty of room for books.

 

[Timewalker]

Yeah, I ordered it specifically for dvds, but the way it's put together I can't fit much of anything on the very top shelf , hence why that other, random stuff is shelved there. The shelf that the blu rays are on is what my dvds used to be on before I "outgrew" it.
The color coding of the book spines that your helper tried is "interesting"... aside from not being able to find anything I think the multi-color array of the different spines looks better, aesthetically, anyway. Large blocks of flat color don't do much for me I guess.

Let's just say that I didn't appreciate my Asimov anthologies being mixed up with the Tanith Lee novels, C.J. Cherryh novels, Dumarest of Terra, Jo Clayton... all of which include series published partly by DAW, partly by other publishers, and in some cases I have the UK editions. And not only was this assortment all together, but it was jumbled up among the authors and type of book (and there were numerous authors/series involved, as well).

My trying to explain that this was a problem, and why it was a problem, was met with blank looks. I guess every author and/or series is supposed to have a uniquely-colored cover, or something.

In some cases I do try to maintain the color blocs, when I know exactly which shelf they're going on and I don't want a mishmash of sizes and colors to ruin the aesthetic. There's great affection in the Fighting Fantasy community for "the green spines" that most of the series has. They're instantly recognizable, and I find that particular green to be cheerful (nice contrast to all the monster-fighting that goes on inside).

But there was an incident later, when I was trying to sort some books in my previous apartment, when I explained that I was trying to sort series, authors, etc. So my helper pulled every Barbara Hambly book I have, including what belongs in the Star Trek portion of my library. She figured it "made sense" and didn't see how I could keep track of a novel "by itself" if they weren't all together.

Well, basically the same way that I can keep track of the Ann Crispin ST novels and her StarBridge series that has nothing at all to do with Star Trek. Or Greg Cox's books; one of the non-Trek ones I have of his is a time travel adventure based on Robert Silverberg's Up the Line. No, it doesn't go on the same shelf with the Khan novels. It goes with the other books based on Silverberg's novel. And for sure I don't keep Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log books anywhere near his Humanx Commonwealth books or his Spellsinger books, or the various miscellaneous novels he's written, or the Star Wars books...

 

[TrickyDickie]

This reminds me of what a conundrum the Bantam Trek novels can be for someone with OCD. On the one hand, you have the 'proper' order of publishing date. On the other hand, you have a mixture of black spines and white spines. I tried the publishing order and just could not stand the look.

I settled, once and for all, for the following:

Star Trek: The New Voyages (white spine)
All of the Bantam white spine novels (in their order of publication)
Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (black spine)
All of the Bantam black spine novels (in their order of publication)

That's my order and my OCD can live with that.

Of course, I sold everything off last year so this will be what I do again in the future.

 

[Timewalker]

This reminds me of what a conundrum the Bantam Trek novels can be for someone with OCD. On the one hand, you have the 'proper' order of publishing date. On the other hand, you have a mixture of black spines and white spines. I tried the publishing order and just could not stand the look.

I settled, once and for all, for the following:

Star Trek: The New Voyages (white spine)
All of the Bantam white spine novels (in their order of publication)
Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 (black spine)
All of the Bantam black spine novels (in their order of publication)

That's my order and my OCD can live with that.

Of course, I sold everything off last year so this will be what I do again in the future.

For my Star Trek Bantams, if they're numbered, they go in numerical order. If they're miscellaneous novels, they go according to author's last name. If chronological order matters, they go in chronological order. So Price of the Phoenix comes before Fate of the Phoenix.

The nightmare comes with the numbered Pocket novels, when it becomes apparent that some are sequels to others, or part of a story arc being written by multiple authors. And then there are the arcs that span TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

This is yet another reason why I mostly stopped buying proTrek novels. Even if I had room for them all, I still wouldn't know exactly where to put them.

 

[TrickyDickie]

For my Star Trek Bantams, if they're numbered, they go in numerical order. If they're miscellaneous novels, they go according to author's last name. If chronological order matters, they go in chronological order. So Price of the Phoenix comes before Fate of the Phoenix.

The nightmare comes with the numbered Pocket novels, when it becomes apparent that some are sequels to others, or part of a story arc being written by multiple authors. And then there are the arcs that span TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

This is yet another reason why I mostly stopped buying proTrek novels. Even if I had room for them all, I still wouldn't know exactly where to put them.

Oh, yes....the numbered Pocket novels. Where ones such as Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday, for example are not side-by-side via the numbers, yet the stories go that way. Same with Vulcan Academy Murders and Idic Epidemic and others. Makes a person almost want to scratch those numbers off the spines!

 

[The Lensman]

I thought of you Miss Chicken when I read this cartoon by Tom Gauld

If you're not familiar with cartoonist Tom Gauld, I think you'll love his work. A lot of his cartoons are about books, the writing of, the owning too many of, or the story construction of. His stuff is always pleasantly funny to me. The only one of his books I own is Mooncop, a melancholy story of the last cop on the Moon.

 

[Miss Chicken]

^^^ Yes, that suits me. I plan to take some books to a nearby Little Free Library but I would probably come back home with as many as left there.

I have recently discovered Text Publishing which publishers classic Australian and New Zealand books. If you buy 5 or more they are only $10 each with free postage which in very cheap for books in Australia. I opened up my coin tin (I had over $300 in it), so I ordered 10 books. I will have to find room for my Text Classics on my shelves.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I got these modular pine ones used. I think thy might originally be Ikea

Yep, that's the Ikea Ivar-series. I use them myself (see pic on page 2 of this thread, post #24). Sturdy, cheap and easy to extend if necessary.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

I have 3 book shelves over my bed and mostly have fiction and comedy.