Our Personal Libraries

[Bartleby]

The idea of this thread is to post photos of our own libraries, if we have any.

my bookshelves I had them recently made from the wood of an old huge wardrobe I had my whole life, in which space I mostly used to fill with books anyway... and it’s real wood so the stuff is quite resistant.

Anyway, I found this would be a nice idea. We had a similar topic on a literary forum here (that unfortunately eventually died) and it was quite fun.

most of my titles are in Portuguese (either written in the language or translated into it from some other language other than English — save for a very few of sentimental, and aesthetic, value I still stick with), and my phone hasn’t got the best camera built in it, so apologies in advance; but here we go!

ah, I also am not very good in arranging books together. I see some people organising their shelves by colour or other methods but I like to, in general, keep authors side by side, don’t like to separate them...

this is the full view, taking a whole three metres of one of my bedroom

These next two offer a closer look at it:





EDIT: I uploaded some clearer photos here.

 

[Liam]

Your book collection is truly gorgeous, B!!! ?

I am somewhat hard-pressed, as most of my books are currently in my parents' house in NYC. I rent a small room in an otherwise large apartment in Boston, and I have to share it with two other people (the apartment that is, not the room, haha), so I can't exactly put books in the designated "communal" areas.

My current library reflects a couple of things: my academic pursuits (so lots of boring titles you've never heard of, probably), and perennial favorites that I simply MUST have with me at all times: my favorite poetry collections, Virginia Woolf, and a number of Russian classics (I am fortunate enough to be able to read the language, so I buy all my Russians au naturel, LOL). My desk is a bloody mess, so please don't judge!

And of course, none of this would be complete without a photo of Dorian, a walking literary reference, as well as my constant companion in all my trials and tribulations (though right now he left me in order to hang out on the couch with one of my roommates, the little traitor!), ☺

 

[Bartleby]

Oh, what a beautiful set! Those coloured Tolstoys up there!! ( they are Tolstoys right?).
And thank you for your compliment. I may try switching the photos some other time so the titles are actually legible...

And I’m in love with Dorian ? such a cute cat.

And what about the slight jealousy of knowing you can read all the great masters in Russian

and it must be quite a pleasant experience living with roommates, supposing they’re nice people, of course.

Oh and I don’t mind your mess. I am quite prone to creating some heck of a mess, my lazy self haha

noticed your Donne up there. I’ve been reading him lately, all because of Marilynne Robinson, bless her soul!

what are your academic pursuits again? You might have told us, but my memory, well...

 

[Liam]

Thank you for your kind words, B!

Yes, two Tolstoys on the top shelf: War and Peace (red) and Anna Karenina (dark green).

My roommates are wonderful, and I'm trying to enjoy my current living situation knowing that one day we'll have to part ways when my partner and I get a place of our own. But, such is life.

Trust me, everyone who meets him ends up falling in love with Dorian,

What did you think of Donne? Other than George Herbert, I think he is my favorite of the "metaphysical" poets.

Academic pursuits: medieval literature in general, with a special focus on Welsh/Irish poetry of the 13th and 14th centuries. I'm writing my dissertation on Dafydd ap Gwilym (Welsh contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer), and that's the bright purple book you see on my desk on the left.

And yes, take a sharper image of your books, so we can read those titles a little more clearly (and judge you--LOL, just kidding!!!) ?

 

[Liam]

I see you have SO many goodies: Oblomov (which is criminally underrated), the original American hardcover edition of The Buried Giant (isn't it beautiful???), and my favorite (to date) edition of Tolkien's LOTR--I have the same one in NY, and I simply love the gray leather cover--it's so tastefully done!

 

[Bartleby]

Thank you for your kind words, B!

? ?

My roommates are wonderful, and I'm trying to enjoy my current living situation knowing that one day we'll have to part ways when my partner and I get a place of our own. But, such is life.

Oh, I know the feeling, and I do hope you are ok when the time comes, especially since you’ve apparently been with them for quite a while now.
I know how it feels to part with those you’ve shared a beautiful part of your life. I’ve been working now and then as an interpreter for some missionaries who come to Brazil since 2018 now, but they’ve mostly up until now been quite older than me - they ranged from 40 to 70 year-olds. So I don’t know, I loved them, they were all so nice (they’ve always been American), but when they left I didn’t feel much. I was always eager to have some young people come, so I could connect better with them. Then my wish was granted, last December. In this team of 10, all of whom were younger than me (18-22)!, two of the boys really bonded with me and in like four days before they parted to some other parts of Brazil (in the end, now in the end of February, they came back to Rio for a couple of weeks then left for real) I cried like I had never before in my life. Then I got comforted. And now I’m good, in peace with them being gone - back to their own lives (gracefully everyone arrived safe home). So yeah, I know the feeling. And I don’t know how you cope with these things but I do wish very strongly you are handle it all well when time comes...

What did you think of Donne? Other than George Herbert, I think he is my favorite of the "metaphysical" poets.

Oh thank you for name dropping Herbert. I believe I haven’t got to his works. I’m loving Donne. There’s a particular rhythm he creates in his poems that’s quite unique, and reading him is kind of like reading Shakespeare’s sonnets — when you get them your mind seems to illumine.
But to be honest I have to get back to him. I was reading him and Yeats (whom I was in love with as well, his being a different poetic enterprise) but I have this problem of discipline with poetry and short story collections when they are loose like this; it feels, each piece, like a complete things, which it is, so the desire to continue venturing through them eventually wanes.

Academic pursuits: medieval literature in general, with a special focus on Welsh/Irish poetry of the 13th and 14th centuries. I'm writing my dissertation on Dafydd ap Gwilym (Welsh contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer), and that's the bright purple book you see on my desk on the left.

oh nice! I’ve been developing some interest in medieval literature recently. I just must get to actually reading it - it didn’t seem to interest me much back in college when I was studying it, but I have interest

And yes, take a sharper image of your books, so we can read those titles a little more clearly (and judge you--LOL, just kidding!!!) ?

Haha I might surprise you, that’s all I’ll say...

And those editions you mentioned, yes they are gorgeous! I’m just afraid I still have to manage to actually read them, like most of my shelf, I’m ashamed to say ?

of LOTR I’ve only read only TFOTR, and that was back in high school, and in Portuguese, when I still believed I lacked the confidence to tackle texts in English — and besides it was a book I borrowed from a friend and I somehow couldn’t get the other volumes from her but I loved the first one! and I must read at least The Buried Giant this year for my read the nobels project... Oblomov I must also get to soon. Well, it ain’t for nothing that my literary heroes tend to be these lazy fellows, Bartleby, Macunaíma...

 

[Liam]

^haha, Oblomov spent half his life lying on his couch, so you ought to connect with him well (as did I), ?

It's a beautiful moment you shared with that group of young missionaries. Human connections are so fragile. We keep some, we lose some. I didn't always realize this, although now I do, but it's something you just have to accept. It's called life. The eternal flow of things. Movement. But when real, genuine human connection happens, it is beautiful.

(I have a little story to that effect: I got Dorian back in NYC, and when I was coming back to Boston nearly four years ago, on the train, with a little kitten in the carrier, I happened to sit next to a young woman who was very nice and chatty. We talked about everything during the four-hour trip: she was visiting her sister but shortly going back to Chicago--where she was finishing nursing school--and from there to Denver, CO, where she got her residency. She was also a great lover of cats. We exchanged information, and we still text each other every couple of months,--she is in Denver, I'm in Boston,--we exchange cat pictures, we stay in touch, but only because of our original human connection that took place four years ago on a train. I sometimes think about the hours we spent in each other's company (we actually haven't seen each other since) and I think, that was beautiful! So yeah, I completely understand what you're saying about feeling, I don't know, somehow bereft, when the person you've formed that connection with is suddenly gone, to another place).

Tolkien's prose is really flawless, once you get over that whole "he was a fantasy author" thing. Whatever the faults of the mythology he created, I believe it does make you a better person once you get to know it thoroughly.

Yeats unfortunately has fallen out of fashion in the United States (especially with the more PC oriented crowd), but I took a seminar with Helen Vendler once (you can see one of her books on my shelf): she is the greatest poetry critic we have in this country, and she was convinced that Yeats was a genius, and what's more, she SHOWED it to us during her lectures. Sometimes she would spend an hour dissecting a single poem, but you emerged from it feeling like you have touched something great. Anyway, that's just to say, I really am fond of Yeats now.

 

[Verkhovensky]

I don't know how you guys managed to upload your images here, every time I try I get "The uploaded file is to large" message.
So I uploaded to imgur, here is the link:

https://imgur.com/a/pP91MWW

More or less, all the books are in Croatian.

Edit: Oh, I see now that Forum automatically shows imgur on the page.
So, to say something about images:
1) What I see when I wake up.
2) "Main" shelves. Not sure how well you can see, but I think you can recognize a box with Salinger's 4 books (third shelf, top row), a lot of Roth right under that (also some Roths published in bigger format are in the last row of this big shelf), also some other books "smaller" in size; on big shelf, first row are for books like Russell's History of Western Philosophy (first from the left), others are by Croatian authors about history of the books as a medium, history of German culture, history of expressionism etc. - all those books are luxurious editions I got as gifts, with cover prices around 100€; second row is for dictionaries, grammars and similar; on third you can recognize 2666 by Bolano (haven't read yet), this Eco is The Name of the Rose, few Llosa's books etc; then there are again some "smaller" books in two rows, and finally those black hardcovers are grouped together because they were published by the same publisher)
3) shows top of the clock shelf and wall shelves; and also stuffed dog (as I don't have any pets I decided to put stuffed dog there for the photoshoot )
4) also from clock shelf, books here are mostly sorted by publisher/edition, this shelf also contains some of my favourite books
5) wall shelves are not very representative, as I just put all books I can't fit into those main shelves in there

Last time I checked, I had 700-750 books, with over 400 in that "hole in the wall", and 300 on those "main" shelves. Unfortunately, many of them are unread, as I am buying faster than I am reading.

Oh, and also as I live with my parents, we have 100-200 books in the living room, enyclopedias, classics in cheap editions I couldn't fit into my room and some contemporary thrillers, romances etc. my parents used to read. Unfortunately, nowadays all they do is spend time on their smartphones and tablets while watching television. I think they haven't read a book in years.

 

[tiganeasca]

Bartleby: some gorgeous works there. What are those bindings in the top photo, second shelf down (to the right of Solzhenitsyn and the left of the Penguin Classics)? Are they Barnes & Noble? They're actually quite attractive on the shelf; and though they're not flashy, the Saramago collection is very nice to look at. Also a stunning binding between Oblomov and War and Peace. I bet that Munchausen is really impressive inside as well! Nice collections of Phillip Dick and, ahem, Bob Dylan, too.

Liam: fascinating and quite attractive. I am intrigued by the selection. Plus, how often does one see Ortega y Gasset in Russian?! I also love that The Velveteen Rabbit is in there as well. Given your dissertation topic (I see chapter 4 there), I gather you also read Welsh? (Though I'm not sure I'm speaking to anyone who likes Helen Vendler enough to buy her work! Brilliant, possibly. Tart, definitely...to the point of astringency. But I've loved Yeats for years, so....) I also had not realized that there was a biography (?) of Arvo Part. Will have to look for that one.... Also don't see a lot of folks with books from Zone Press (at MIT as I recall). I guess I can't really qualify as an academic or I might see more of them.

Verhovensky: I LOVE the shelving; I must confess that in many ways I wish I awakened to a view like that. Sadly, many of the books I can't quite make out, plus many that I think I can are in Croatian (surprise!). So I can't comment on the collection, but based on your note, wonderfully eclectic. (By the way, love the stuffed dog! What's his (her?) name?)

My own library is a bit scattered; most of it is in the basement because we have a small house and there's simply no room elsewhere. The older, classic things are mostly in the living room. Most modern stuff is in the basement. I took a few closeups (and two long shots) since it's impossible to get a picture of the whole thing.... There are about 4,500 or so books, but keep in mind that I am much older than many (most? all?) of you and this represents the collecting and reading of about four or five decades. (And in answer to the question running through your minds at the moment, the answer is 67.) The entire collection is cataloged on LibraryThing (which is now totally free to use). My collection (in reverse order of acquisition) is at

Gypsy_Boy's books | LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a cataloging and social networking site for booklovers

www.librarything.com

. My largest collections are German, French, Indian, and Russian.

The cat is sleeping, so no pics at the moment but, like Liam, we name ours after literary characters. We lost Huckleberry a few years ago; now we have Pip. It's tough to find names that also "work" as names for a cat, we've found. Before we settled on Pip, we had quite a discussion. I liked Zorba and my wife just looked at me with pity. What's wrong with Zorba? He's one of my literary heroes.

 

[Verkhovensky]

Wait Tyga, this is your house and not your local library?

Well yeah, they are mostly in Croatian, but you can at least recognize some authors.
Stuffed dog has no name, he is just called dog
I see you have LibraryThing, great. I tought about opening my account there, but it was a big problem as there aren't many users from Croatia there, so most of my books are not already in their database, so I would have to enter everything manually. Hm, who knows, now in quarantine...
I see many interesting things in your collection. Paul Street Boys for example, one of the books that got me into reading... great book, but also very traumatising when you are kid.

 

[tiganeasca]

Well yeah, they are mostly in Croatian, but you can at least recognize some authors.

When you wrote that, I went back and confirmed that I couldn't make out many of the titles. Then, I suddenly realized that there were four more pictures that I did not see the first time.

?

Now that I've been able to see things clearly, I also see that I was right: it is a wonderfully eclectic collection; you've really got a terrific collection of a wide array of things. And I'm VERY pleased to see someone else who owns Dino Buzzati! (the stars, in this case, are for you, not Buzzati).

(For the dog's mental health and self-esteem, I urge to name him. Or her. Or it.)

 

[Ludus]

I would love to show you my books, but currently all of my personal library is in México City, and I'm in my parents house in Baja California, to help them if the pandemic gets worse (my mother is a doctor).

Also, you guys have beautiful bookshelves and I don't ? my apartment in Mx is still a poor student's apartment, and most of my books are living in low quality stacked boxes, so nothing to show there.

I do have some books here (I would get mad if I didn't), but scattered around the house, and the totality of them couldn't fill two shelves.

 

[Ludus]

But I promise that when I move to a bigger apartment, when all this shit is over, and when I get some beautiful bookshelves, y'all will be the first ones to see them ?

 

[Bartleby]

Tiga! you just completely humbled us all ?!
It’s incredible really, it really does look like a public library.
I believe the titles you’re asking about were my penguin classics clothbound editions. They’re really showy.
I’ve seen some Zolas there. Have you read any? I’ve been meaning to read his works, not still sure if it’d be worth it, to read it all I mean. Perhaps I’d just want to read Germinal and Therese Raquin and that would be it...
What editions are those Hardys you have? I quite like those casings...
And yes, Zorba would be an adorable cat name. I love cats, but I still live with my parents and specially my mother she doesn’t like having them around...

Verhovensky, your shelf is quite charming. I know it’s a great pleasure to wake up seeing one’s book collection. Are those Buzatti, Calvino, Pirandello in Croatian as well? They look quite nice!
and that english language 2666 edition just kills it! Our Brazilian edition of it is quite nice as well, but the English language one, that’s something else entirely!

 

[tiganeasca]

B: thanks. There really are quite a number of good-looking bindings in your collection. And I love the story about how the shelves were made. Very attractive. Let me ask again, what is that binding between Oblomov and War and Peace? And tell me more about that oversized Munchausen!

Zola: I've read Therese Raquin (wonderful!) and Germinal (somehow "wonderful" doesn't seem quite right but it's a very moving, very powerful indictment). I'd love to read more of him but there's too many books out there, so I simply keep putting the others off.

The Hardys are Folio Society books and they are as handsome inside as out, I must confess. I wish all their books were so nice.

 

[Bartleby]

B: thanks. There really are quite a number of good-looking bindings in your collection. And I love the story about how the shelves were made. Very attractive. Let me ask again, what is that binding between Oblomov and War and Peace? And tell me more about that oversized Munchausen!

Oh, sorry, I completely forgot about that! It’s Anna Karienina. And I’ll show the Munchausen in greater detail in a moment...

 

[Liam]

how often does one see Ortega y Gasset in Russian?!

Probably never, I got it for $1 at this Russian bookstore in Brighton Beach that I used to frequent. I remember they had a flash sale or something, so I got a bunch of titles that I otherwise wouldn't have got around to.

Your own shelves look amazing, T! So many goodies, I wouldn't know where to start!

And yes, I read Welsh (both medieval and modern), and I can tell you that it's a difficult but beautiful language. It looks particularly beautiful on the page, just the way words are spelled, it often gives me an aesthetic kick just to look at Welsh words (weird, I know, but not the weirdest of my hobbies, haha).

I didn't realize that Helen Vendler was astringent; perhaps I caught her at the tail-end of her career? LOL. I remember she was very mellow and soft-spoken in seminars. At first there was a chance that she would agree to be on my committee (the required number of readers in my case is 3), but she said she was not comfortable reading poetry in another language, she simply wouldn't be able to provide proper judgement. I was upset but I suppose it makes sense. She DID say that were I writing about an English poet, or even a Welsh poet who wrote in English, like Dylan Thomas, she would have happily signed on.

Arvo Pärt is my favorite composer, but I haven't read this particular book yet. From what I am able to glean just by flipping through it, however, is that it's less a biography and more a musicological analysis of his work (though biographical tidbits still abound).

Ah, yes, Zone Books, ? I don't care for much of the stuff they publish (academically speaking), but the books (particularly the hardcovers) are so beautifully produced it's a pleasure just to have them on the shelf and to look at them (though I've read most of the ones you see up there, of course).

 

[Bartleby]

@Liam
Oh I love Pärt as well! I wasn’t able to spot this particular book in your photos. What’s its title and author?

 

[Liam]

Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence by Peter C. Bouteneff, 2015.

 

[Bartleby]

So I went full booktuber and made and posted a(n unlisted) bookshelf tour video for you guys hope the titles are clearer to read now. Tho I’m afraid in some cases it still might be blurry — my phone’s not the best and adding to that I had to shrink the video down cause my poor internet connection was making it impossible to upload.
It’s quite long, longer than I intended it to be, and still I’d have liked to show you some more covers and book designs and stuff.
I also speak lowly (and I’m kind of a mumbler), so I hope that and my domain of English don’t get in the way of you understanding me.

enjoy