My true s(h)elf

Ever since I ran across this article about “you are your bookshelves,” I’ve again been thinking about posting photos of my shelves—and then thinking, “Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.”

Because it makes a person feel a little bit exposed, you know? 

For example, there probably are those who would judge me for placing a biography of Princess Diana a mere three books away from my (very small) middle-brow poetry collection. Heck, there probably are those who would judge me for owning a Princess Diana biography. (Oh, people, I’ve got more than one...) Or for the middle-browed-ness of the poetry, for pete’s sake.

And on this same shelf, you’d find the Bible next to a book about Buddy Holly.*

So instead, I offer you this one:

None of these books will be a surprise to anyone who’s spent more than a minute hanging around here. Here we’re plunked right down in the middle of the presidential history books, in the Johnson – Obama years. Then we’ve got my tragic fire books (oh, how I love them), followed by Buddy Holly (he’s all over the place), Walter Cronkite, Arctic exploration, football, and a couple of life-changing reader’s advisory textbooks.

This is one of my prime real estate shelves, located in the living room. Reasonably respectable, heavily hardcover, and suitable for their location on the glamour wall (built-in bookcases and fireplace).

You’ll just have to wait to see the Princess Diana/poetry/Bible/Buddy Holly/women’s history/shipwreck shelf. Someday. Maybe.

*Even truer confession: I was going to brave posting the photo I took of that very shelf, but the books are in a barrister bookcase, and the glass reflected the photographer who was still in her pjs. We don’t want that on the interwebs now, do we?