It's snowing, it's winter . . . a time for reading and organizing and taking care of details and we were thinking . . . what do our bookcases say about us?
Are they organized:
- Alphabetically?
- By subject?
- By spine color?
What do our bookcases say about where we've been and what inspired us to read?
The bookcase above is a repurposed overhead kitchen cabinet. It, and it's twin who lives on either side of our fireplace, hung on the wall of a house that was about to be demolished . . . they were salvaged, turned upside down, stiffened up with a beadboard back and stiles, cleaned, primed twice, topped off with three coats of high gloss "Pot 'O Cream" paint and complimented with cove, 5 inch base and shoe base moulding. What they need now is leaded glass doors . . . a project for next winter.
My husband, Mike, has a collection of what I call "picture" books . . . books about crime and time and war and photography and architecture . . . my picture books are about vintage stuff, value guides, trends in decorating and funky junk. What are your "picture books" about?
When I am inspired by a particular book . . . I buy another copy and when I find a person who would be as inspired by it as I was I send it to them. On the right, notice two copies of Max De Pree's Leadership Jazz. I love Max! Read Leadership is an Art . . . you too will love Max.
Two more identical titles . . . Bill Dietrich's Northwest Passage. Why two copies? One is Mike's, one is mine, both are first editions signed by Bill and somewhere buried and printed in the back of the book is a comment I made about Celilo Falls on the Columbia River. That was my nano-second of fame that nobody read.
Books are inspiring and one on this shelf is especially so . . . Consider This Senora. Written by Harriet Doerr . . . it was her debut novel published when she was seventy-four years old. That's inspiring to me! Maybe when I can no longer muster the physical strength to vend at vintage markets and funky junk shows I will have a story worthy of telling.
What do your books say about you? How do you live with them . . . on shelves, in bookcases, on the coffee table?
