A Self-Indulgent Post About Book Shelves

There are many ways to arrange books.  If you are an interior designer, you might arrange them by color and size.  A history buff might order them according to period, or by publication date.  Someone with limited shelf space might stack them every which way, to take up as little room as possible.  You could arrange them by author, by page count, by publisher, or by frequency of use.   You could employ the liquor store technique, arranging them by quality, putting the best books on the top shelf.

Not long ago I was making a promotional video in my basement with Max and Nick, two men in their early twenties.  Max was directing, Nick was operating the camera.  (Click here to view Part One of the movie we were making)

Making a movie—even a very short video—involves a lot of sitting around and waiting.  During one of these periods (waiting for a battery to charge), Nick was looking over my bookshelves.  He became excited when he found my almost-complete collection of Philip K. Dick novels and story collections.  Max was interested in Dick’s writing, too. 

As was I, when I was their age.

My books are arranged, roughly, in alphabetical order by author and by genre—sci-fi against the east wall, crime fiction in the next bookcase, comic books to the west, and so forth. 

It occurred to me, watching Nick and Max flipping through the Phil Dick books, that it might be interesting to arrange my books according to the age at which I first read them.

First would be my tattered copy of Brave Cowboy Bill, a Little Golden Book from the 1950s.  Among the last, as of this writing, would be Explorers of the New Century, by Magnus Mills.

Here’s a list of books that made a big impression on me, roughly arranged by the age at which I read them. (OCD much?) I’ve tried to be honest here, even though a few of the titles make me squirm to think that I bought into them at any age.  I only allowed myself one book per author.  

Age 4-7

The Little Engine that Could —“Watty Piper” and others

Brave Cowboy Bill —Kathryn Jackson

8-12

Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint — R. Abrashkin and J. Williams

Charlotte’s Web —E.B. White

A Wrinkle in Time —Madeleine L'Engle

Tom Sawyer —Mark Twain

Lord of the Flies —William Golding

“The Hardy Boys” —“Franklin W. Dixon”

Wild Trek —Jim Kjelgaard

White Fang —Jack London

12-16

Strangest of All —Frank Edwards

The Source —James Michener

The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) —J.R.R.Tolkien

Cat of Many Tails —Ellery Queen

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

The Human Comedy —William Saroyan

Atlas Shrugged —Ayn Rand

The Pearl —John Steinbeck

Cat’s Cradle —Kurt Vonnegut
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold —John LeCarre

Tai Pan —James Clavell

Brave New World —Aldous Huxley

17-25

The Idiot —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Teachings of Don Juan —Carlos Castenada

The Sun Also Rises —Ernest Hemingway

The Puppet Masters —Robert Heinlein

Triton —Samuel R. Delany

Nausea —Jean Paul Sartre

Martian Time-Slip —Philip K. Dick

The Immoralist —Andre Gide

Madame Bovary —Gustave Flaubert

The Savage Mind —Claude Levi-Strauss

The Structure of Art —Jack Burnham
Rogue Moon —Algis Budrys

Junky —William Burroughs

Mushrooms of North America —Orson K. Miller

Dune —Frank Herbert

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test —Tom Woolf

The Stranger —Albert Camus

25-30

Rebecca —Daphne du Maurier

In Cold Blood —Truman Capote

The Big Sleep —Raymond Chandler

“Solid Objects” —Virginia Woolf

The Elements of Style —William Strunk and E. B. White

Dubliners —James Joyce

The Left Hand of Darkness —Ursula LeGuin

The Adventures of Alyx —Joanna Russ

Baby is Three —Theodore Sturgeon

A Sweet, Sweet Summer —Jane Gaskell

The French Lieutenant’s Woman —John Fowles

The Great Gatsby —F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Stars My Destination —Alfred Bester

The Postman Always Rings Twice —James Cain

30s

Deliverance —James Dickey

Dog Soldiers —Robert Stone

The Book of the New Sun (tetralogy) —Gene Wolfe

The Cream of the Jest —James Branch Cabell

Unknown Man No. 89 —Elmore Leonard

Leaving Cheyenne —Larry McMurtry

Wild Seed —Octavia Butler

Falconer —John Cheever

The Talented Mr. Ripley —Patricia Highsmith

40s and 50s

The Remains of the Day —Kazuo Ishiguro

Lyonesse (trilogy) —Jack Vance

The Silence of the Lambs —Thomas Harris

Expendable —James Alan Gardner

The Ice House —Minette Walters

Maus —Art Spiegleman

The Fourth Durango —Ross Thomas

Duchamp —Calvin Tomkins

Spin —Robert Charles Wilson

Explorers of the New Century —Magnus Mills

Stats

Total Books: 72

Books by men: 60

Books by women: 12

Books by Americans: 45+

Books by British and Irish authors: 10+

Books by authors of other nationalities: 10+

Books by African-Americans: 2+

Books written before I was born: 25

Books written by authors who are deceased: 40+

Books by gay authors: 10+

Sci-Fi/Fantasy books: 20+

Crime/Mystery books: 10+

Listed authors I’ve read more than one book by: 61

Listed books I’ve read more than once: 33