I’ve always dreamed of having a wall full of floating shelves filled with books, so when I found two spare planks of wood at the Restoration Hardware outlet, I snatched them up. They’re not much, but they’re mine! Maybe more wood planks will show up at the outlet for me to swipe, and then I will be unstoppable!
That said, I do like how my limited shelf space has made me more particular about what books I keep in my collection, or at least it’s forced me to prioritise which books of my collection to display and which ones to keep stored in my bath tub (more on that later). Remember those five books I owned in multiples? I’ve sold some so now the only books I own in multiples are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Little Women. Look at that character development :’)
In addition to culling my current collection, my new shelves have prompted a more rigorous criterion for new additions to my collection: Is it floating-shelf-worthy?? Although I had my shelves properly installed with hidden brackets secured to wall studs, I still don’t feel comfortable putting too much weight on them, so every ounce is precious. (A hardback has to be real special to make it!) So far, I haven’t felt the urge to buy any books, except for How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee, which I fully intend to buy some time this year. Fingers crossed that it’ll be my only book purchase of 2021? For some reason I really want to buy a copy of The Brothers Karamazov too, but I’m not allowing myself to give into that one until I read my copy of Crime and Punishment.
Anyways, here they are, my humble shelves, staggered over my desk—one for classics and one for mostly contemporary. Sometimes I zone out of my work just to stare at them. I have yet to get in the habit of rereading, but with my collection right there in front of me, I find myself slightly more inspired to do so. Already I have been pulling books from my shelves more often, flipping open to random pages or leafing through sticky notes I’ve left.
Ah yes, there’s that too: I’ve been more inspired to annotate. I’ve loveeed going through my tabs and am getting a greater sense of what I consider worth marking and revisiting.
Another thing I’ve realised is that I’m much more likely to revisit paperbacks than hardbacks, so there’s that to consider for new purchases too!
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Under my desk are library books, and then there’s the bath tub storage situation… I don’t use that bath tub, so the books are safe from humidity and from getting plain soaked. Don’t get your panties in a bunch!
Any books that aren’t on my shelves are in one of two boxes in my bath tub. One box is for books I plan to offload once secondhand bookstores are taking donations/trade ins again. The other box is for books I want to keep but that didn’t make the floating-shelf cut, and for books I haven’t yet read to decide whether to keep in my permanent collection. I do buy books with the intention of keeping them in my permanent collection, so that latter category is mostly made up of giveaway wins or books gifted from publishers.
I’d like to get a small shelf for those bath tub books, just a plain floor shelf, nothing fancy, but I haven’t figured out where in my room I’d put it. There’s this lounge chair in my bedroom that is MASSIVE but oh so comfy, so the layout of my room is a bit chaotic at the moment.
But my bookshelves, they’re total bliss.
