Aaargh! I just filled up the last of my bookshelves in the computer room! This happened slightly sooner than I was anticipating, due to the annoying domino effect you get when a thin book bumps a thicker book off onto the next shelf, and it bumps a whole bunch of thin ones, which then bump off a thick one and some thin ones... Stupid long-winded Stephen King. Stupid long-winded J.K. Rowling.
Well, my initial thought for when this happened was that I'd add another small bookcase, sticking into the room at a right-angle, but the more I think about it, the more I think that's an annoying solution. It'd make the room more crowded than I'd like, and would only be a fairly temporary measure, anyway.
Much as I tried to get out of it, I suspect a major re-organization is called for. This is actually kind of traumatic to contemplate. I'm used to my books where they are! But where they are just isn't going to work indefinitely. Sigh.
So, OK, here's the plan: Hardback fiction gets moved into the dining room, where there's still plenty of wall space. (I'll have to move a picture off the wall, but I'm sure I can find somewhere else to put it.) Five full-sized bookcases should fit in there quite easily, and, having done some measuring, I'm 99% certain I can accommodate the medium-sized one as well. That gives me an entire five shelves worth of expansion room for the hardback fiction, which should last me quite a while, and there's even room to add another five-shelfer when needed, assuming I find somewhere else to put the telephone. I'll have to move the CD rack, but that is comparatively small and can go almost anywhere.
The Star Trek and Doctor Who books currently in the dining room will migrate to the bedroom. Unfortunately, the ancient folding shelves the Trek novels currently reside in are on their last legs and will probably not survive the relocation. So I'll replace those with another five-shelfer. Unfortunately, that'll be about half a shelf too small for what's currently on there, so the hardbacks will have to go somewhere else. I think what I'll do is replace the three-shelf case the non-fiction Trek books are currently on with another five-shelfer, which will not only accommodate the overflow, but will give me extra shelves which could be used for any number of things in the future.
The non-fiction currently in the bedroom will move into the big bookcases currently in the computer room. That's a straightforward migration: from four bookcases onto four bookcases, and there's already a lot of expansion room built in there. Two of the big cases in the bedroom will stay there, and two of them will swap with the smaller ones from the dining room. That will leave me three large bookcases to buy and put in the dining room for the hardback fiction.
The paperback fiction, mercifully, can stay right where it is. Otherwise, it's basically one big rotation of books from room to room. And the results seem like they should actually be something of an improvement: the embarrassingly large number of media tie-in books can live discreetly in the bedroom, the non-fiction will surround me where I do most of my typing and thinking and writing, and the hardback fiction will be in a public place where people can exclaim, "Have you actually read all of these?!" as they seem to inexplicably enjoy doing. And the To-Read Pile stays on the shelves in the utility room like the work-in-progress that it is.
Which is all well and good, but holy crap, I'm not looking forward to doing all that.
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It's not like you need the dining room for hosting lush dinner parties anyway (or even dinner parties for lushes).
ReplyDeleteSo true. In fact, I almost never actually eat in there, anyway.
ReplyDeleteBesides, in the unlikely event I ever did host a dinner party, I think it should take place in a bookish ambiance. :)
I`m glad I`ve got this page BOOKmarked.
ReplyDelete1. Make some money, rent out your books to all those students at NMT.
Just tell them they are textbooks.
2. Become an instant "Thousandaire", sell them.( I don`t mean that, really
3. Make sure we have room to sleep next time we come to visit.
4. I can understand why you don`t have a dryer. No room.
5. Are my Grandcats being displaced? Better not be.
6. Will this replace the Dewey Decimal System?" If so, patent it and make some money that way. Maybe you can by that dryer.
7. What is your total count at now, books that is.
To address some of your points. :)
ReplyDelete3. You get to sleep in the room with the paperback fiction.
4. Actually, the space where the dryer would go if I had one is as of yet uncolonized by bookshelves. I am, however, keeping the option open.
5. There does seem to be some book/cat rivalry, as I occasionally find the cats pulling books off the shelves. The books, however, are much better behaved and never molest the cats.
6. I prefer the Library of Congress system to Dewey, personally, but my books are more or less organized on the Betty system.
7. Total count: 3,081.
Cool! Thanks, I`m glad the cats are good book choice.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed by how organised you are. Though my own books probably only run into the hundreds rather than the thousands (I've never attempted to count them), whatever organisation I had between fiction/non-fiction, by subject/genre and alphabetically broke down long ago, so that I often can't find the book that I'm looking for. It doesn't help that I don't have enough shelving, so that there are piles of books all over the place. Even on the shelves, in places the books are two deep.
ReplyDeleteIf they weren't organized, I'd never be able to find any of them. Plus, I like to be able to see them all. It's... comforting. It would drive me absolutely crazy to have them two deep on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteNo, when you run out of space for bookshelves, the only reasonable answer is to move house. :)