I love books. I suppose I’m a bit of a minor bibliophile, weighted heavily to Mormon studies. I would love to hear about your books, but I realize that it’s not really feasible for everyone to share a catalog of their 2,000 volumes or whatever. So it occurs to me that one way we could get a sense for your collection is for you to describe your bookshelves, basically shelf by shelf, with maybe a few representative titles for illustrative purposes. Sort of the report an archaeologist would give if he were digging up your bookshelves 200 years from now (and all of the books had survived intact, of course). I’ll go first (to give you a sense of what I’m looking for):
I live in a smallish house, so I don’t have a single library room. My books are divided into four main locations in the house.
Living room. Here I have two very sturdy, large “This End Up” shelves, about six feet high by eight feet long. The top couple of shelves on the left feature my prettiest collection, the University of Chicago Great Books series (think Mortimer Adler). My father bought this from a struggling graduate student who needed the money many years ago. The next couple of shelves are mostly books from my classics studies at BYU; lots of Latin and Greek texts, ancient history books, reference works. The bottom shelf is for oversize reference works (Compact OED, Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar, old Kittel edition of the Biblia Hebraica, etc.)
The top two shelves on the right side are for my blue Harvard Classics Series. I almost never actually use any of these books, but again, they belonged to my father and were prominently displayed in my childhood home, so I keep them mostly for sentimental reasons. The next shelf has my hardbound Journal of Discourse and, to fill out the space, my four-volume Vulgate. The next shelf down has a first edition Comprehensive History of the Church (the same edition B.H. Roberts plunked on the Tabernacle pulpit during conference in 1930, shortly before his death), which was also my father’s and displayed in my childhood home. These are beautiful books (far superior to any later edition). Next to that is my Encyclopedia of Mormonism, then text critical stuff on Mormon scripture (all of the Skousen volumes on the BoM and the huge JST critical text), a set of facsimile reproductions of early Mormon scripture and texts, and then the old Sjodahl and Reynolds commentary on the BoM (again, something I keep displayed mostly for sentimental reasons). The bottom shelf is mostly oversized coffee table type books (Civil War, WWII, Black’s Law Dictionary are examples).
Family Room. Here I have built-in floor to ceiling shelves, maybe six feet across. We’re in the process of rebuilding the shelves, so the books are piled up in my bedroom. But the way I had it set up before, the top shelf was all BoM studies (mostly FARMS stuff). The next shelf and a half or so was Church history books. Then I had spaces for discrete subjects (each taking considerably less than a full shelf), such as Dead Sea Scrolls, Egyptian religion, Mormon apologetics, Mormon music, modern languages, English grammar, etc. Towards the bottom I had general English literature, mostly classics type stuff. (My favorite “for fun” reading is Victorian novels: Austen, the Brontes, Hardy, etc.). Again, the bottom shelf is mostly oversize stuff: genealogy books, “how to” books, travel books, etc.
Den. In my den I have two Ikea white bookshelves. This room is dedicated mostly to Mormon periodical literature. So, on the shelf nearest my desk, the top shelf is my pile of books in line for me to read, and I’m behind so it’s pretty much full. The next shelf down is JBMS and FR. The next shelf and a half, double stacked, are Dialogue, and then two multi-volume Bible dicitonaries (Interpreter’s in the back and Anchor in front). On the bottom shelf is Sunstone. On the smaller shelf in the closet I’ve got JMH and BYU Studies, together with miscellaneous stuff like Biblical Archaeology Review.
Pantry. In the pantry I have a large, substantial “This End Up” book hutch, also double stacked. On the back part of the shelves is my Anchor Bible collection, which I’ll probably complete about the time that I die. On the front are studies and reference works relating to biblical studies. At the bottom behind cupboard-type doors are two shelves. On the top shelf is my collection of BoA materials, which is pretty extensive for a regular member living away from Utah. On the bottom shelf are copies of articles and books that were references for articles I’ve written.
So, tell us about your bookshelves…
In our pantry we have some food and the books that came with appliances, Microwave Cooking and the like.
You put the Anchor Bible in your pantry?
We have two sets of shelves in our living room. There are books scattered throughout the house but that’s the main spot for them (hey, it’s a 2-bedroom NYC apartment – what did you expect?). :) We left boxes of books in a basement in Utah – so this won’t be very complete here.
We’ve got some of the following kinds of books here in NYC:
- medical and anatomy texts (belonging to my wife)
- art books (Kandinsky, Klee, Saul Steinberg)
- some children’s books (the Narnia series, one or two Harry Potter books)
- Jewish Studies books
- a few books dealing with Biblical topics (Job, Genesis)
- dictionaries/lexicons (English, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish)
- a few copies of the Qur’an (one with some very nice colorful fonts and gold-edged pages)
- Sahih Bukhari (a multi-volume collection of hadith)
- Sahih Muslim (a multi-volume collection of hadith)
- Fatah al-Bari (a multi-volume commentary on Sahih Bukhari)
- other books dealing with Islamic history and topics
- some LDS books and biographies (Rough Stone Rolling, etc.)
- some classics (Dostoevsky, Jules Verne, Mark Twain)
- a few pulp fiction novels by Stephen King
- a few American History books – 1776, which I still haven’t read
My one and only major book wish: to get a set of Oxford English Dictionary books. It might be awhile.
Ha, ha, yeah, that’s pretty odd, Julie. As a disciple of Nibley I live in the same starter three-bedroom ranch I bought 19 years ago (I never moved up to a big, fancy house), so yes, my Anchor Bible collection is in the pantry.
Danithew, I think I got my Compact OED as a Xmas gift one year. Even with the magnifying glass I can barely read it. But it’s a tremendously useful reference and I use it fairly often.
We have bookshelves in every room in our house.
In the bathroom, we have The Far Side, Jack Handy and other humurous books–Sarah’s friends loved our bathroom. In the front room, I have some pretty books and picture books.
In my office, I have two bookshelves, one has poetry, life after death books, essay books, recovery books, and phone books from all the over the place (I always take them from hotels, they’ve come in handy). The other has my classics (think Les Miserables and CS Lewis) an old and much used set of encyclopedias, various atlases, a medical encyclopedia which I drive Bill crazy with, thinking I’ve come down with something, James Herriott’s collection and my “church books.”
I have one in the hallway for novels, Elizabeth Berg, Amy Tan, Alice Hoffman, Anne Tyler, Wally Lamb, . . .there’s a crappy one in the basement where we put our old manuals and Ensigns, stored in cereal boxes with cardboard headers.
And one in the kitchen for cookbooks. The bedrooms sort of have books piled all over. I am a book person.
Oh, annegb, I absolutely adore James Herriott!
You just reminded me that I have another cranny, a small closet off the hallway that used to hold the furnace before we moved it to the attic. I used to keep my collection of Ensigns and church manuals in there, until my wife convinced me to ditch them. So now I’m reliant on lds.org for any of that sort of thing.
I wish I had room for the Anchor Bible in my pantry … that’s where we keep our old tax returns. Not nearly as inspiring when I go to cook.
Our main book area is “the office.” 5 cheap walmart bookshelves. The books are grouped into categories:
• literature (from my comp. lit. days, organized by color) • psychology/parenting, eco-lit, and music (Dillard, Berry, Leopold; various histories of music/jazz) • fiction series (Narnia, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Tolkien, Asimov, etc.) • philosophy (mainly bits of continental stuff I like) • general religion, including reference works (Koran, Schneemelcher’s NT Apocrypha, Eliade, Lewis, etc.) • “lit. crit.” (Purloined Poe, Toril Moi, Freud on art and lit., etc.) • college textbooks (mainly math and physics) • personal journals, family histories, etc.
We have other shelves holding books throughout the house (cookbooks in the kitchen, kids books in the baby’s room, photo albums in the guest bedroom), but our other main book area is downstairs in the family room. To offset our movie collection, we decided to house our LDS books down there. They’re grouped into the following:
• biographies (RRS, David O McKay, Lucy’s Book, etc.) • Joseph Smith (Words of Joseph Smith, Personal Writings of, Papers of, Teachings of, etc.) • FARMS and the Nibley set • Church publications/institute manuals • current prophets and apostles • articles, photocopies, and theses (more FARMS, Ehat’s master’s thesis, and the like)
My dream: built in “real” bookshelves that won’t crush me in an earthquake.
Upstairs:
Fiction (scattered pretentious works, with a nod to the West in the person of Doig), food writing, lit-crit, and Bobo-style non-fiction works.
Downstairs:
Nabokov and Nabokoviana, mountaineering and ski texts/movies, Mormon studies, religious studies (including the mandatory Anchor), women’s studies, Russian fiction, theology, and cultural history, then pop psych stuff, activism books, some old Interpreter’s Bible volumes, and a small handful of general history books.
Our one nod to military history/studies is Noam Chomsky.
Kevin, I had the OED on CD-Rom but then when I got a new laptop, my OS became incompatible with it. They wanted me to pay for the upgrade and I decided the next time I got it, I would have a physical copy.
You can browse my bookshelf here:
http://qsysue.tagplazen.org/pics/books/
It’s not everything I’ve got, but close enough. Some of my faves:
* The huge stack of books on U2 I got from someone online (long story)
* The Matt Groening Life is Hell books
* Andy Goldsworthy, Stone
* The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal
* Loser
Almost all of the LDS books I inherited from my husband’s grandma.
Susan, great books!
I don’t know how old your kids are, but if I were you, I’d get those Messages of the First Presidency off the bottom row of the book shelves (you know what they’re worth, right?).
Kevin (#6) — I too would like to stop subscribing to the Ensign, and just look up everything on lds.org. But then something happens that makes me value the printed versions. For example, in Sunstone’s news section back in November 2006, there was a write-up on two instances of post-publication censorship. It spoke of two articles that no one would ever find if searching lds.org or the CD-ROM. They are simply gone. My mum keeps everything, so I had her send me one: the 1971 environmentalist article by Helen Candland Stark. At times like that, it’s nice to have the artifact in hand. But then, you have more problems with space than I do! Good post.
Our place in the states, (where we keep our books we can’t travel with) is super tiny, so I’m impressed all of you even have a place called a “pantry.” Also, because of the space situation, my husband regularly purges books from our apartment. It hurts. With that in mind, our bookshelves are:
livingroom: shelves dedicated to the Beatles, rock bios, books of sheet music.
What-sed-to-be-the-diningroom: shelves on film aethestics and criticism, and film and photography reference guides.
Hall closet: smooshed next to linens and pillows are books on languages, arabic culture, odds and ends.
Bedroom: many shelves on educational resources and references, a couple shelves of church books, novels, philosophy, and coffee table books on pop culture and Barbie and stuff.
Kitchen: stuffed above the stove, in that little space where the fan is, are cookbooks, of course!
Kid’s room: lots and lots and lots of kids’ books.
All my old Mad Magazines and comics are stored at my mom’s house!
You asked for it…come to my blog and take a look at my bookshelves!
What a fun post!
We are in the process of moving, so many of our books are packed up. Those books that we still have out are in our living room on four sets of built in shelves.
Here’s a rough break down by set of shelves with a sampling of what’s there.
Set 1:
– Law school books and some Mormon legal history
– Joseph Smith and his family books (Brodie, Bushman, Lucy’s Book, Mormon Enigma, Papers of JS, books on Joseph’s kids)
– Nauvoo books (Flanders, Launius, Nauvoo Endowment Companies, Nauvoo Temple by McGavin)
– Mormon & women books (Mormon Mother, God the Mother, Women and Authority, Sisters in Spirit, lots of others)
– Misc. fun (Sex Life of Brigham Young, Brigham’s Destroying Angel)
– Messages of the First Presidency
Set 2:
– History of the Church
– Comprehensive History of the Church
– Some oversized art books
– Bound volumes of Vandy Law Review
– Set of Early Mormon Documents
– Set of Illustrated Stories from the New Testament (for kids)
– Nibley stuff
Set 3:
– News of the Plains and Rockies set
– Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography set
– USU’s Frontier Women series
– Dictionaries
– Set of Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon (for kids)
– More Joseph Smith stuff (Collier’s Unpublished Revelations, JS’s New Translation of the Bible, etc.)
– Dickens
– Misc. bios (J. Golden Kimball, Lorenzo Snow, John D. Lee, Widtsoe, Maxwell, Nibley, Sir Richard Burton)
– Utah War (Hafen’s book, Mormon Conflict)
Set 4:
– Signature Limited Diaries (still missing Joseph Smith and William Clayton; let me know if you have one to sell!!)
– Other diaries (John D. Lee, Housea Stout, McClellin, Charles Walker)
– Mormon Bibliographies (Flake, Crawley, Allen Walker & Whitaker, Bitton’s Diaries book)
– Kingdom of the West series
– Quinn’s books; Arrington’s books; Stegner’s books; Mauss’s Books; Given’s books
– More bios (Juanita Brooks, David O. McKay, Sidney Rigdon, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Erastus Snow, Abner Blackburn, Orson Pratt, Orin Porter Rockwell)
– Misc. fun (Mormon Thunder, Utah’s Black Hawk War, Wayward Saints)
I should probably pack up more of these, but I can’t bear to.
My collection:
Robert A. Heinlein
Ray Bradbury
Douglas Adams
All of Harry Potter (pre-ordered book 7)
Lewis’ Narnia series (the old set with Magician’s Nephew as book 7 instead of 1)
a ton of Penguin and Dover classics
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
A number of IT textbooks (VB, Excel, Access, and the like)
several guitar chops books (mostly metal and hard rock technique with a little country tossed in)
A collection of Guitar World and Guitar School magazines
About a year’s worth of recent DC Comics
My wife’s old Harlequin romance novels
Stephen King
A ton of pregnancy books
another ton of Sesame Street books for the kids (oldest is 3)
Church books that didn’t make it to my bookshelves until about 9 months ago
Mine are all piled willy nilly in every room of my house. I have a lot of big leatherbound hardbacks from the 100 greatest books series. I love many of those books, but they’re heavy and unweildy so I find I usually read the paperback version of the same books and leave the hardbacks on the shelves to gather dust. I’m a big fan of Dostoyevsky so I have lots of his, and 19th c. Russians in general so I also have a fair sprinkling of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gogol, etc. Some of the other lit-fic I have: Jane Austen, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Henry James, Walter Scott, Franz Kafka, Anthony Trollope, Nikos Kazantzakis, Henry Fielding, Samuel Beckett, and lots of poetry: W.H.Auden, Robert Frost, Robert Browning, A.E. Housman, Emily Dickenson, William Blake, Percy Shelley, John Keats.
There’s one shelf that’s devoted to world religions, and two downstairs that are engineering reference books (of which I have a fair number at work, as well). The downstairs hall has a wall of shelves that hold a lot of paperbacks that are literary fiction, science fiction, and science non-fiction. I favor the hard sciency types of science fiction like Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Niven, as well as Orson Scott Card, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Lois McMaster Bujold, etc. and of course every possible Tolkien book. Upstairs bedroom has a lot of shelves with more of the same, along with a number of philosophy, music, and math books that are mostly from my dad. Oh my complete collection of Nevil Shute is on that shelf too, plus Chaim Potok and Mark Salzman.
On the fireplace are all the books I’ve ordered from the church website, the manuals for studying Book of Mormon, etc. The scriptures and “Preach my Gospel” are on the dining room table or the sideboard, because I read from them often while I eat.
here’s a sample -
shelf 1: The Quran, Church History in the Fulness of Times
shelf 2: The Eco-Design Handbook, Cradle to Cradle
shelf 3: Encyclopedia of Furniture Making, Bauhaus
shelf 4: The Work of Charles and Rae Eames, The Design of Everyday Things
shelf 5: Everything Jane Austen
shelf 6: Gangs of New York, Kick Me (hilarious)
shelf 7: Ishmael (Daniel Quinn), Soul Mountain
the rest? church books from EFY to Jesus The Christ to When thou art Converted (Ballard)
In our family room we have three short book shelves (three shelves each) full of children’s books, from chunky unrippable books for babies to picture books to early chapter books. We don’t have a library yet here (but we do have a library committee now!), so I like to buy boxes of used kids books on eBay. Super cheap. Usually you are buying something described as a box of “KIDS BOOKS – INCLUDES 12 CALDECOTT WINNERS” or something like that, but when you open it, there are all sorts of unexpected surprises.
My kids each have small bookshelves in their rooms, where they keep their favorite bedtime books. Books are pretty much in a constant flow between the family room and their bedrooms.
In the living room we have a few tall bookshelves with all of our non-fiction stuff – church books, business books, computer reference books, parenting books, gardening, home improvement books, etc. Whenever I want to know something, I buy a book, so it’s a pretty eclectic collection.
In the basement we have a huge box of books I was going to take to the DI, but never quite got around to. It’s hard for me to part with books.
In the office (where you would think the computer and business books would be), I have my ratty old shelves with all of my fiction books and well loved paperbacks. There’s current stuff, like Kiterunner or Time Traveler’s Wife, classics (Jane Austen, of course) and older well loved paperbacks that I’ve had since childhood, like my dog eared Anne series, Narnia books, and stuff from wierd phases I went through, like my brief run through various John Grisham novels.
I would love to turn our formal living room into a true library, with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Heaven!
I don’t know how old your kids are, but if I were you, I’d get those Messages of the First Presidency off the bottom row of the book shelves (you know what they’re worth, right?).
No, what are they worth?
My youngest is 13 so I think they’re safe.
Susan,
They list on Abebooks for 30 to 40 bucks apiece, or more (up to $70 or so), depending on condition. See http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?tn=messages+of+the+first+presidency&sts=t&y=0&x=0 .
I’m jealous. Between international moves and living in a small flat, I can’t keep books at the rate some of you do.
Living room: big IKEA bookshelves.
Shelf 1: Lonely Planet guides, dictionaries (Eng/Finn, Finn/Swed, Eng/Dutch, Finn/French, Eng/Span, Dutch/Span). Shelf 2: poetry (Finnish and English), literary biographies. Shelf 4: hardcover fiction collection (Hemingway, Steinbeck, Morrison, Greene, Waugh etc.). Shelf 5: collection of Emerson and Thoreau, WW2 novels and nonfiction; Shelf 6: furniture and interior design references, art history textbooks. Shelf 7: church books (Finnish & English), family-history related books, Encyclopedia of Animals.
In bedroom: two small shelves, all paperbacks, mostly unread or half-read. A random sample: Granta and British Council anthologies; essay collections by Martin Amis, Primo Levi, Alain de Botton, V.S. Naipaul; novels by Anne Tyler, John Irving, Jamaica Kincaid.
Under the bed: magazine collections: New Yorker, Q, Atlantic Monthly, Wallpaper.
Shelf over door: my treasured pulp fiction collection (Chandler, Hammett, Cain, etc.)
The boys have more books in their room (Eng & Finn) than can be imagined.
You all have such impressive book collections. One can only aspire. . . .
Susan,
Kaimi is generally right, but volumes 5 and and especially 6 are more pricy. Volume 5 alone is listed on Amazon beginning at $95. Volume 6 alone is listed at Amazon for $270.
Any books I really like, I give away. It’s a bad habit my wife and I have. (ie- the books stacked by the side of my bed.)
Anyway, here’s what I am reading right now.
1. Spencer W. Kimball’s “Lengthen Your Stride” biography.
2. The Wayment, Holzapfel new testament coffee table book I can never remember the name of.
3. Blake Ostler’s Mormon Thought, book 2
4. Bart Ehrman’s Intro to New Testament
5. The Bible
6. A triple combination
7. Truman Madsen’s Eternal Man
8. John A. Widtsoe’s rational theology
9. Managing Human Resources
10. Applications in Human Resource Management
11. The 1st three issues of “The Golden Plates” by Mike Allred.
That’s cool, thanks for the info. I have Volumes 1-5. I’m not the type to sell stuff, though.
Argh–this is a painful topic at the moment–our house has been on the market, so half of my books (a dozen boxes or so)are in storage. Adding insult to injury, when we had the house “staged”, the decorator reorganized my shelves by size and color with plants and decorative objects all over the place. It is an abomination!!
I feel your pain, Kristine, being there myself. But you can’t leave us hanging completely! Inquiring minds want to know!!
I’ve got Gibbons Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and Beevor’s Stalingrad sitting next to Auto Repair for Dummies and a dozen translated Japanese comic books (“Maison Ikkoku and Nausicaa). Mostly general history books, old philosophical pieces I haven’t read since college, various nature field guides, chess books, various Mormon doctrinal works, the odd environmental rant (like Edward Abbey), gardening and child-rearing, quite a bit of children’s fiction, Dr. Seuss books, and a smattering of miscellaneous fiction (from Orson Scott Card, to Tad Williams, to Watership Down, Jane Austen, and Tolstoy).
My home office has a few of the above mentioned as well. But it’s mostly dominated by a set of the Colorado Statutes (which I do actually use) and a bunch of old law school text books (that are absolutely worthless to me, but still look fairly imposing on my shelf).
Secret tip about lawyers:
They never use most of the books you see on their bookshelves. It’s all for show. A lot of those are hopelessly outdated casebooks that have almost zero application in a real law practice – but nonetheless are bound in impressive blue and burgundy hardcover and sport impressive-sounding names like “Constitutional Law” (as if any of us ever actually used Constitutional Law). They’re also quite big, which adds to the macho factor.
OK–on my nightstand:
4 Zinas
Gilead
Interlinear Greek New Testament (yeah, I’m a total poser)
Jane Clayson Johnson’s _I am a Mother_ (review forthcoming–watch this space!)
latest issues of Dialogue and extra copies of Sunstone (because I’m an author :) !), First Things, Harper’s, Better Homes and Gardens, and O (true confessions…)
a collection of John Donne a friend just gave me
3 bad, formulaic “chapter books” my 8-year-old has been reading in my bed
One thing I have tucked away somewhere (probably in a basement in Utah) is a copy of Roots with a signed note from Alex Haley inside the cover. My mother knew I was a fan of the book and she ran into Alex Haley at a genealogy library. She said he told her that if he knew about the Mormon records, he would have been able to do things faster. I’m not sure about how many African records we had back then – but I don’t think she was making that up.
I realize I’m violating the instructions – but I had my little list at hand – and I can’t resist the chance to use it. hehe.
We have three main book shelves and one supplimental shelf. We also have the back of the toilet, the kitchen counter, the top of the refrigerator, two bedstands, the floor beside the bed, and just about everywhere else. One is my hardcovers and quality paperbacks (listed below), one is my wife’s hardcovers, the other is shared and crammed full of papaerbacks several levels deep, like a deep soil sample.
If you go on to read this list, you’ll note the absence of Mormon books. That’s because I jettisoned most of my LDS books while I was out of the church. I only kept my scriptures, and those were locked away. I’m beggining to recollect, but those are lying around in more useful places. The shelves are more like a museum, at this point.
Complete Works; William Shakespeare
The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; Helen Vendler
Complete Plays; Christopher Marlowe,
Dune; Frank Herbert,
Holy Bible, King James Version
The Book of Mormon
The Essential Koran,
Basic Writings; Frederich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra; Frederich Nietzsche
Nietzsche in Turin; Lesley Chamberlin,
Written on the Body; Jeanette Winterson
Art & Lies; Jeanette Winterson
Art Objects; Jeanette Winterson
Gut Symmetires; Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit; Jeanette Winterson,
As I Lay Dying; William Faulkner
Complete Stories; Flannery O’Conner
Outer Dark; Cormac McCarthy
Sutree; Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian; Cormac MCcarthy
All the Pretty Horses, C McCarthy
The Crossing, C MCcarthy
Cities of the Plain, C MCcarthy
No Country for Old Men, C McCarthy
The Road, C McCarthy
Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy; Various
Moby Dick; Herman Melville,
Complete Essays; Montaingne,
Beowolf; translated by Seamus Heaney
Redress of Poetry; Seamus Heaney
Open Ground; Seamus Heaney
The Vikings; Gwyn Jones,
Complete Letters; Oscar Wilde
Selected Writings; Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde; Richard Ellman,
Complete Poems; W.B. Yeats
Later Articless and Reviews; W.B. Yeats
Later Essays; W.B. Yeats
Autobiography; W.B. Yeats,
Winter Pollen; Ted Hughes
Collected Poems; Ted Hughes
Birthday Letters; Ted Hughes
Tales from Ovid; Ted Hughes
Collected Poems; Sylvia Plath
The Silent Woman; Janet Malcom,
Song of Soloman; Toni Morrison,
Beloved, Toni Morrison,
Omens of the Millenium; Harold Bloom
The Western Canon; Harold Bloom
The American Religon; Harold Bloom
How to Read and Why; Harold Bloom,
Sexual Personae; Camille Paglia,
My Century; Gunter Grass
The Magic Mountain; Thomas Mann
Doctor Faustus; Thomas Mann
Death in Venice and Other Stories; Thomas Mann,
Letters to a Young Poet; Ranier Maria Rilke,
Writings; Thomas Jefferson,
Babel Tower; Antonia Byatt
Possesion; Antonia Byatt
Elementals; Antonia Byatt
Djinn in the Nightengale’s Eye; Antonia Byatt
Little Black Book of Stories; Byatt,
Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, Louis Breger
Selected Writings; C.G. Jung
Letters to 1950; C.G. Jung
Memories, Dreams, Reflections; C.G. Jung *
C.G. Jung Speaking; C.G. Jung
The Soul’s Code; James Hillman
The Blue Flame; James Hillman,
American Poetry of the Twentieth Century in 2 volumes; various,
Lives; Plutarch
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol I; Edward Gibbon
Bulfinches Mythology
Selected Dialogues; Plato,
Essays; Ralph Waldo Emerson,
The Decameron; Giovanni Boccacio,
Selected Poems; Baudelaire,
Of Love and Other Demons; Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera; Gabriel Garcia Marquez
100 Years of Solitude; Gabriel Garcia Marquez
News of a Kidnapping; Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Selected Non-Fictions; Jorge Luis Borges
Selected Fictions; Jorge Luis Borges
Selected Poems; Jorge Luis Borges,
Don Quixote; Cervantes,
All the Names; Jose Saramago
Blindness; Jose Saramago
Baltasar and Blimunda; Jose Saramago,
The Bow and The Lyre; Octavio Paz
The Labyrinth of Solitude; Octavio Paz
Collected Poems; Octavio Paz
The Other Voice; Octavio Paz
Itinerary; Octavio Paz
An Erotic Beyond Sade; Octavio Paz,
Death In The Andes; Mario Vargas-Llosa,
Collected Poems and Fiction; Edgar Allen Poe,
War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy,
The English Patient; Michael Ondaatje
Collected Works; Michael Ondaatje
Soldier of the Great War; Mark Helprin
Winter’s Tale; Mark Helprin,
Old Man and the Sea; Ernest Hemingway
Zorba the Greek; Nikos Kazantzakis,
1001 Nights; translated by Hussein Haddawy,
Seven Gothic Tales; Isak Dinesen
Winter’s Tales; Isak Dinesen
Last Tales; Isak Dinesen
Out of Africa; Isak Dinesen #
Anecdotes of Destiny; Isak Dinesen
Isak Dinesen, Life of a Storyteller; Judith Thurman
Letters from Africa; Isak Dinesen
The Pact; Thorkild Bjornvig,
Complete Plays; Henrik Ibsen
History of Danish Dreams; Peter Hoeg
Tales of the Night; Peter Hoeg,
Hardy, A Life; Martin Seymour-Smith
Tess of the Durbervilles; Thomas Hardy
Heart of Darkess; Jospeh Conrad,
The End of Science; John Horgan
The Undiscovered Mind; John Horgan,
Hymns to the Night; Novalis,
Lives of the Poets; Michael Schmidt
Gothic: 400 Years of Excess, Horror, etc; Richard Davenport-Hines
Byron; Benita Eisler
Byron, A Portrait; Leslie Marchand
Shelly; The Pursuit; Richard Holmes
Coleridge: Early Visions; Richard Holmes
Coleridge: Darker reflections; Richard Holmes
John Keats, A Life; Stephen Coote
Colerdige, A Bondage of Opium; Molly Lefebure
Coleridge The Talker; Various
Letters; John Keats
Don Juan; Byron
Illustrated Poems; John Keats
Collected Poems; Percy Shelley
Complete Poems; William Blake
Biographia Literaria; S.T. Coleridge
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (with woodcuts by whatshisface), Coleridge *
Letters, in 2 volumes; Charles Lamb
Frankenstein; Mary Shelley,
The Proper Study of Mankind; Isaiah Berlin
The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent; Lionel Trilling,
Canaan; Geoffrey Hill
The Triumph of Love; Geoffrey Hill
Speech!, Speech!; Geoffrey Hill,
Complete Stories; Franz Kafka
Complete Poems; Emily Dickenson,
The Dream Songs; John Berryman
Complete Poems; Eilizabeth Bishop
Collected Poems; Wallace Stevens,
Selected Poems; Gerard Manly-Hopkins
A Hopkins Reader; Hopkins *
Collected Poems; T.S. Eliot
Inventions of the March Hare; T.S. Eliot
Letters; T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot, A Life; Lyndall Gordon,
Complete Poems in English; Joseph Brodsky
New and Collected Poems; Wislawa Szymborska
Year of the Hunter; Czeslaw Milosz
Complete Poems; Czeslaw Milosz
Open Letters; Vaclav Havel,
The Sea, The Sea; Iris Murdoch
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals; Iris Murdoch
Existentialists and Mystics; Iris Murdoch
The Good Apprentice; Iris Murdoch
Sartre: Romantic Rationalist; Iris Murdoch
Elegy for Iris; John Bayley,
Watership Down; Richard Adams
The Silmarillion; J.R.R. Tolkein,
Invisible Cities; Italo Calvino
The Castle of Crossed Destinites; Italo Calvino,
The Varieties of Religious Expereince; William James,
Room with a View; E.M. Forster
Howards End; E.M. Forster
Women in Love; D.H. Lawrence
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; James Joyce
Dubliners; James Joyce,
Voyage of the Beagle; Charles Darwin,
The Name of the Rose; Umberto Eco,
Sketches from a Hunter’s Notebook; Turgenev,
Secrets of the Flesh, a Life of Colette; Judith Thurman,
Walden, and Other Essays; Henry David Thoreau
Leaves of Grass; Walt Whitman,
The Odyssey; translated by Robert Fagles,
The Creators; Daniel Boorstein
The Discoverers; Daniel Boorstein
History of Civilization, in 12 volumes; Will and Ariel Durant.
~
In the same vein, this website is kind of fun:
http://www.librarything.com/profile/CaliforniaKid
Sort of a nerdy man’s myspace. You’re limited as to how many books you can list, but not so limited as to make it impractical. I’ve listed 134 of mine.
Thanks one and all for your contributions; this has been both fascinating and fun. Keep -em coming!
Kristine, you forgot to mention your collection of Harlequin romances… (ducking)
We live in a small apt with no room for much anything at all but one of my prized projects this year were these track shelves I built on the wall. Sleek silver tracks and shelf holders and shelves I painted a darker royal blue. Then there’s an unusuable fireplace in the apt that we also turned into shelving.
My books are groups topically mostly: philosophy, religion, science (for scientists and science for nons, yoga, cookbooks (an ungodly number), Mormon, reference books, some non-fiction memoir types, and then all fiction. I have collections of Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and Marilynne Robinson. Everything else is a crazy hodge-hodge of fiction, though mostly all from the last century. I love books but with the amount of times that I move I am trying to talk myself out of my love of owning them and becoming more dedicated to libraries.I have read 95% of what I own consequently.
Norbert, recently reading Chandler and loving him.
I own a copy of every book ever written by Elmore Leonard. If you like Chandler, run, don’t walk, to the nearest bookstore and buy one of Leonard’s books. You won’t regret it. My favorite is Touch, and Bandits comes in a very close second.
Also, about 6 years ago, I got on a Louis L’Amour kick and started working through his entire oeuvre. I like books with titles like Westward the Tide and Utah Blaine.
Books are a problem at our house, as I can barely ever part with them.
Bedroom: My wife grew tired of the stacks by my side of the bed, so I got an Ikea wall mount shelf with doors that now sits in the upper corner of our bedroom on my side of the bed, mostly filled with my current reading. In there I have:
C.S. Lewis collection (three volumes in one, The Pilgrim/s Regress, Collected Letters, and God in the Dock)
Ballard’s “Counseling with our Councils”
Stephen Covey’s “Spiritual Roots of Human Relations”
“Revelation, Reason, & Faith” essays in honor of Truman Madsen, FARMS
“The Quality of Mercy”, Eugene England
Several Cisco certification books (not for pleasure)
Old Deseret Alphabet copy of the first part of the Book of Mormon
Copy of Robin Hood from the 1830′s brought to US by my Great Grandmother (Badly worn)
“Rough Stone Rolling”, Bushman
In other rooms, I have a lot of science fiction, church books, Dialog & Sunstone back copies, more Eugene England, hard cover and paperback fiction, trade paperback non-ficton, etc. Couple of terrific non-fiction books I’ve read recently:
Hans Zinnser, “Rats, Lice, & History”, seminal work on the impact of infectious disease on world history.
“The Worst Hard Time”, history of the 1930′s dustbowl
“Undaunted Courage”, Stephen Ambrose (another favorite of mine”
Living Room:
Audubon’s Birds of America (about 11 x 14, never grow tired of it)
Several art books, and a huge pile of piano and guitar books, guitar tablatures in looseleaf binders
It all overflows into boxes in our garage.
More interesting to me is some of the dreadful books that I haven’t yet disposed of:
Several titles by Dan Brown (Okay, I enjoyed “The Da Vinci Code”, but hated “Angels & Demons”. Don’t bother reading any of his others, “Deception Point”, and I forget the other one about NSA supercomputer)
Orson Scott Card, “Empire” obviously written under deadline, backstory to a video game.
Books that have dramatically altered my view of life:
Book of Mormon
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Joseph Smith & the Beginnings of Mormonism, Bushman
“Eternal Man”, Truman Madsen
“Sons & Lovers”, DH Lawrence
“Ulysses”, James Joyce
“Huebner” Roger’s original play as produced at BYU
“Dialogues with Myself”, Eugene England
I love books!
I love books to.
Sorry for me my wife loves to read but hates bookshelves and has recently been making me store books in the attic/garage or better yet in her view take books from the Lib and return them. See no clutter:)
My most recent conquests are:
The Covenant a historical novel about South Africa
Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancey
Band of Brothers, Ambrose
These books are kept in the garage in a box.
I like history books, historical fiction, and church books.
Stephen Ambrose is my favorite author (right now)
In trying to form a virtual ward library I documented my nonfiction LDS texts. Most of these I inherited or was given. Unfortunately no one else in the Ward was willing to document their books to get the library going.
Games with Gospel Themes Alma Heaton
Teaching With Objects Alma Heaton
The Savior and the Serpent Alonzo Gaskill
The Words of Joseph Smith Andrew F. Ehat
What Latter Day Stripling Warriors Learn From Their Mothers Ardeth Greene Kapp
First Year Book: The Seventy’s Course in Theology B.H. Roberts
So You Are Going On A Mission! Barbara Tietjen Jacobs
The Soft Reply Barlow L. Packer
A Town Called Charity Blaine Yorganson
The Loftier Way Blaine Yorganson
The Holy Temple Boyd K. Packer
Mormon Doctrine Bruce R. McKonkie
The Millennial Messiah Bruce R. McKonkie
The Mortal Messiah Vol. 1 Bruce R. McKonkie
The Mortal Messiah Vol. 2 Bruce R. McKonkie
The Mortal Messiah Vol. 3 Bruce R. McKonkie
The Mortal Messiah Vol. 4 Bruce R. McKonkie
The Promised Messiah Bruce R. McKonkie
Classic Speeches Volume 1 BYU Speeches
Bonds That Make Us Free C. Terry Warner
Leadership and Self-Deception C. Terry Warner
A Companion to your Study of the New Testament: The Four Gospels Daniel H. Ludlow
Marking the Scriptures Daniel H. Ludlow
The Religion and Family Connection Darwin L. Thomas
Gospel Ideals David O. McKay
Personal Writings of Joseph Smith Dean C. Jessee
A Topical Guide to the Scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Deseret Book
Christmas Classics Deseret Book
Christmas Treasures Deseret Book
Families Deseret Book
Prayer Deseret Book
The Apostle Paul, His Life, and His Testimony Deseret Book
The Fullness of Times Drew S. Goodman
Fathers and Sons in the Book of Mormon E. Douglas Clark
Teachings and Commentaries on the Doctrine and Covenants Ed J. Pinegar
Spencer W. Kimball Edward Kimball
An Abundant Life Edwin Firmage
Ezra Taft Benson: Boy of the Land, Man of The Lord Elaine Cannon
A Witness and a Warning Ezra Taft Benson
George Albert Smith Frances M. Gibbons
Searching the Scriptures Gene R. Cook
Love At Home George Durrant
Our Search to Know the Lord George W. Pace
Building Faith with the Book of Mormon Glenn L. Pearson
Teaching with the Book of Mormon Glenn L. Pearson
God the Father Gordon Allred
Way To Be Gordon B. Hinckley
Drawing on the Powers of Heaven Grant Von Harrison
Fathers As Patriarchs Grant Von Harrison
Is Kissing Sinful Grant Von Harrison
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism Greg Prince
The Pearl of Great Price: A History and Commentary H. Donl Peterson
The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God H. Donl Peterson
The Story of the Book of Mormon H. Donl Peterson
Approaching Zion Hugh Nibley
A Joseph Smith Chronology J. Christopher Conkling
Nauvoo Panorama Janath Cannon
Ken Garff Jean R. Paulson
A Guide to Scriptural Symbols Joseph Fielding McKonkie
Bruce R. McKonkie Story Joseph Fielding McKonkie
Prophets and Prophecy Joseph Fielding McKonkie
Sustaining and Defending the Faith Joseph Fielding McKonkie
Teach and Reach Joseph Fielding McKonkie
The Life Beyond Joseph Fielding McKonkie
Witnesses of the Birth of Christ Joseph Fielding McKonkie
The Progress of Man Joseph Fielding Smith
The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith Joseph Fielding Smith
Harold B. Lee L. Brent Goates
Sacred Truths of the Doctrine and Covenants Vol. 1 L.G. Otten
Sacred Truths of the Doctrine and Covenants Vol. 2 L.G. Otten
A Marvelous Work and a Wonder LeGrand Richards
LeGrand Richards: Beloved Apostle Lucile C. Tate
Boys Who Became Prophets Lynda Cory Handy
Counseling with our Councils M. Russell Ballard
Alma and Abinadi Mark E. Petersen
Isaiah for Today Mark E. Petersen
Joseph of Egypt Mark E. Petersen
Joshua: Man of Faith Mark E. Petersen
Malachi and the Great and Dreadful Day Mark E. Petersen
Noah and the Flood Mark E. Petersen
The Jaredites Mark E. Petersen
The Sons of Mosiah Mark E. Petersen
Three Kings of Israel Mark E. Petersen
Matthew Cowley Speaks Matthew Cowley
John Taylor: Messenger of Salvation Matthew J. Haslam
Discourses on the Holy Ghost & Lectures on Faith N.B. Lundwall
A Wonderful Flood of Light Neal A. Maxwell
Literature of Belief Neal E. Lambert
Mormons and the Bible Philip L. Barlow
LDS Adventure Stories Preston Nibley
Rough Stone Rolling Richard Lyman Bushman
Joseph F. Smith: Portrait of a Prophet Richard Neitzel Holzapfel
Take Heed That Ye Be Not Deceived Richard T. Winwood
Within Reach Robert L. Millet
Leadership For Saints Roger Dean Duncan
Winning Spirit Shellie M. Frey
Ezra Taft Benson Sheri L. Dew
Faith Precedes the Miracle Spencer W. Kimball
The Miracle of Forgiveness Spencer W. Kimball
Where is Wisdom Stephen L. Richards
Spiritual Roots of Human Relations Stephen R. Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families Stephen R. Covey
Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood Volume A The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood Volume B The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Our Heritage The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Priesthood in Action The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Live the Good Life Thomas S. Monson
Joseph Smith, The Prophet Truman G. Madsen
Truth Will Prevail: The Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987 V. Ben Bloxham
Choices: A Father’s Counsel William G. Dyer
I’m in college right now, but I’ve still got a moderate book collection. I got a cheap 4 foot tall bookshelf at Walmart and everything else is in boxes under my bed. Also, most of my books I’ve either taken from home (without my parents noticing) or I’ve bought at used bookstores. They generally fall into four or five categories: sci fi / fantasy, books about the church, books about martial arts, books about the middle east, and textbooks. Most recently, I found a copy of Momo by Michael Ende at a used bookstore in Provo, and I got a whole box full of Leading Edge magazines from my friends at TLE.
If only I had the time to actually read them…
Good Grief,
I can’t believe how large many of your collections are!!! It certainly would make Elder Monson happy to hear that one of the three pillars of an LDS home– a “library of learning”– is prevelant!
Q: Fess up, how many of you forgot to put the Work and the Glory Series on your lists??? ‘Come on, speak up!!!
*One of the things that I’ve seen living next to a military base is that the lower ranking enlisted families rarely have the weight allowances to transport bookshelves. I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve seen in which there MIGHT be half a dozen books—maximum. Consequently, they rely on library books. In most parts of the country, LDS non-f and f isn’t readily available. Good luck T Stevens, it is a great idea!
Q: Does anyone have that CD-ROM LDS classics collection?
Amri — I love Chandler. Yes, the plots make no sense, but best prose ever.
Mark IV — Elmore Leonard is indeed amazing. I just read The Hot Kid, and that put Hombre and Pagan Babies into my reread stack.
I found a gem,
“Wilbur and Oliver the Mormon Oxen”
A children’s book by Patrick St. Clair. (If you loved ‘Ben and Me’ by R. Lawson– which was later made into the Disney cartoon, you’ll love this book as well!) Two thoughtful oxen recount the western trek and talk about the struggles and celebrations of the family they pulled. Illustrations are fresh and the banter between the two oxen captures true Mormon Pioneer whit.
It’s a fun, but tricky catch. I wish it had received more attention from non-LDS multicultural children’s collections, as it really captures pioneer spirit and would be an excellent introduction to the Mormon Trail for young readers and appropriate for classrooms as well.
What I can’t believe is that some folks here actually took the time to write out all those titles. Good grief!
Seth,
What’s the point of having books if you can’t show them off right? Good grief is right.
onelowerlight! I LOVE Momo, and I’ve never met anyone else who has read it.
Norbert, # 42,
You know what they say about great minds? I just re-read The Hot Kid last week – how about that!?!?!
I’ve already (over)spent my book budget for the month, but on June 1, I’m buying Up In Honey’s Room, Leonard’s latest, which was just released in hardback on May 8. I can’t wait.
Family Room: Church books
Toy Room: Kids’ books and Harry Potter series
Our bedroom: every book ever published by certain fiction authors (Mary Higgins Clark, Tony Hillerman, Elizabeth Peters, Louis L’Amour [true brain candy], etc.)
My office: education and sales topics
Kids’ bedrooms: their own favorites
Every room: school texts and genealogy tomes and more church books
I won’t list thousands of titles. I’m not that bored.
#44
Seth,
I had that list written down several years ago – for a more utilitarian purpose. All I had to do was cut and paste. ;)
I do have a mammoth ego about my books, but I’m not that neurotic about it. Someday I’ll write down all the paperbacks, too – then I’ll hand the list to new people I meet. Pleased to meet you, here’s the list of my books.
~
Where is the love? Writing them out was not an act of boredom, rather it was an attempt to help my little ward. How small? Well I was YMP, SSP, Priest Quorum Advisor/Teacher, 12-13yo SS teacher, and Scout Committee chair all at the same time. Our little library at the church consists of 5 books with JFS’s Progress of Man as the most known. I knew everyone had several books in their homes that they would be willing to share with the other members so I wanted to created a virtual LDS Library. I wrote mine out to set the example but alas no one else seemed willing. I guess I should have erased the file, but I thought it just might be useful one day; and then today was the day. A simple cut and paste.
If it redeems me at all, I do not have a record of my fiction LDS and all my non-LDS books, nor do I feel inclined to make one. That said I started to keep track of every book I read about 5 years ago and that is an interesting list, at least to me. Favourite writers are Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell, Haruki Murakami, and Marian Keyes. Yeah. I know that last one stands out.
Being the one who mentioned boredom, I must admit that I wrote out a list of all the videos and DVD’s that we own – specifically to know what we had let friends borrow so we wouldn’t end up with half our library after a while.
Also, my humor often gets lost in translation. Sorry for that T.
“Someday I’ll write down all the paperbacks, too – then I’ll hand the list to new people I meet. Pleased to meet you, here’s the list of my books.”
Thomas, you never should have left Seattle, man. We’d have had a blast.
On the back part of the shelves is my Anchor Bible collection, which I’ll probably complete about the time that I die
Dont bother, some of them arent worth the paper they are printed on (e.g., the infamously bad one on John’s Revelation).
Yeah, ED, I know that the quality of the volumes is quite uneven. Some of that has to do with the purpose of the series changing over time. Early volumes were meant to be basic overviews for a lay audience, but eventually they became works of scholarship in their own right.
Aye, Steve. :)
What’s weird. I’m likely the most sentimental person alive. I form emotional attachments to things like fire hydrants. My wife teases me that I say things such as “do you recall last week? Wasn’t that the Golden Age?”
And yet, in spite of the fact that I loved living in Seattle for many years, I have very little sentimental feeling for it. I miss Bishop Hanley, and Kahoo and Theron and Pres Thatcher and others. But for the city itself, I feel remarkably little.
When I first moved to Seattle, it was still very much a blue collar city. Boeing, and all that. It was very friendly. Almost like living in a great big small town – you very much had the feeling that you were living in your town. But then it was declared the best city in America to live, and Msoft and the other tech companies brought in tons of new money, and a new attitude.
I bemoan what happened to a great little inexpensive neighborhood like Belltown, where all the artists could afford to live and you hopped down to the market, and all the sounds and smells and the autheticity – yes, it was once inexpensive. Wife says “come on, would you rather have the crack whores than the condos?” And I say “yeah, bring back the crack whores and ship these monstrous new ‘beautiful’ buildings out.”
I do miss being able to walk to Mariner’s games on a whim. Now if we want to catch a game, it’s a major production.
~
Merciful heavens! A fascinating and admirable thread!
I have moved twice since 1999: the first move motivated me to sell or give away “almost all” of my books. But the little scoundrels followed me across country (like those dogs who manage to find their owners after being lost); and by 2004, hundreds of the books, or their kin, were ba-a-ck. Two years ago, I moved again; same scenario.
So I thought rather than summarizing rooms or shelves (or prying open the still-sealed boxes in the garage), I would offer a sampling (maybe 30%) of the books I’ve ordered from amazon.com in the last 18 months or so.
Letters of E.B. White
Second Tree from the Corner: Stories by E.B. White
E.B. White: A Biography
The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler.
Savage Beauty, a biography of Edna St. V. Millay
Video Hound Golden Movie Retriever for 2007
(Absolutely necessary for a movie buff)
I Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life
by Allen Shawn, son of former New Yorker
editor William Shawn, brother of Wallace.
Whatever Happened to the Quiz Kids? (Only of
interest to those who remember the radio show.)
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, by Barbara Brown
Taylor. Taylor was an Episcopal minister for
many years.
Close Range: Wyoming Stories, Annie Proulx
Writing Home, Alan Bennett
Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion
by Amy Wilensky
The Complete Talking Heads, Alan Bennett
Blessings in Disguise, a memoir by Alec Guinness
Digging to America, Anne Tyler’s latest and my
favorite of her novels
The Last Word: the New York Times Book of Obits
and Farewells. (Wonderful reading!)
Body My House: May Swenson’s Work and Life–
Swenson remains Utah’s premier poet to date
I Can’t Help Smiling, autobiography of opera diva
Eileen Farrell
The History Boys, A Play. by Alan Bennett. Won
the Tony last year.
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. The only novel I’ve
ever read that seems wrapped in holiness.
Alice James, a biography by Jean Stouse. Alice was
sister to William James and Henry James. One
of the great biographies.
Well, I seem to have botched up the posting of my comments here–sorry about that.
Wow, Elouise, if that’s only 30% of your Amazon orders, you sure do buy a lot of books! No wonder the little creatures keep following you around.
All of my books from undergrad. Because we’ve moved recently, and foresee a couple more moves in the near future, I’m trying to pare down my bookshelves (only three right now!) and buy what I won’t be able to get at libraries easily.
My books are basically in two categories, with my wife’s in another two and my daughter’s of the board book variety (and we have a number of board books).
I have a lot of Mormon Studies/history books (UofI types), and probably more cookbooks and other food-related books. (And add to that the last three or four years of Bon Appetit magazine–that’s almost a shelf unto itself). My wife has dance- and education-related books. We have tons of other books scattered around but, again, thanks to moving, we’re trying (hopelessly but desparately) not to acquire too much more. For now.
Re #59–Kevin, when I left Utah, I hauled a few crates of books up to Sam Weller’s, and the bookseller there said, “We rarely see such a WIDE collection.” She was diplomatically referring to the ships-shoes-and-sealing-wax hodge podge of subjects: lots of books about dogs, a few baseball books,some Art for Dummies sort of things,feminist books, some poetry (though I couldn’t bear to part with most of those)–nothing you really could call a serious collection such as you and your BCC colleagues have listed. There were a couple of books I had bought years earlier at a New England auction for 50 cents each; she offered me $200 for those. At the same auction, I saw a complete set of Dickens, leather-bound though not first editions, but from the period. I expected they would sell for hundreds–out of my price range at the time; but I walked off with the whole set for twelve dollars. One person’s trash is another’s treasure, without question.
And as for amazon.com–it has surely done more for the sheer volume of the book business than any other phenomenon of our day except for Oprah and J.K. Rowling. It’s all far too easy. You browse, you see,you click, and a very few days later, there’s your book in the mailbox. Addictive!
I don’t have time to list all my books, but for the curious here are some of the titles within reaching distance while seated at my desk. It’s an ad hoc assortment of what I’m using right now for current projects, but gives you some idea of what the bookshelves look like.
Politics of Piety—Mahmood
Feminist Social Thought—-Meyers
God vs. The Gavel—Hamilton
Body, Sex, and Pleasure—Gudorf
The Archaeology of Knowledge—Foucault
Feminism and Philosophy—Tong
Politics—Aristotle
The Nature and Destiny of Man–Niebuhr
Sexing the Church—Kalbian
American Evangelicalism–Hunter
Self Love and Christian Ethics–Weaver
The Ethics of Authenticity—Taylor
The New Oxford Annotated Bible
The Five Books of Moses–Alter
The Human Condition–Arendt
Just Love—Farley
The Desire of the Nations–O’Donovan
The Erotic Phenomenon–Marion
Sources of the Self–Taylor
Gender Trouble—Butler
Bodies That Matter–Butler
Giving an Account of Oneself-Butler
Undoing Gender—Butler
The Psychic Life of Power—Butler
Politics and Vision–Wolin
Lectures on the History of Philosophy–Rawls
Sex and Social Justice–Nussbaum
Strangers in Paradox–Toscano
Fits, Trances, and Visions–Taves
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind–Noll
God’s Daughters–Griffith
Transforming Grace–Carr
Toward a Theology of Eros–Burrus and Keller
Acts of Faith–Stark
The Rise of Mormonism–Stark
Rational Theology—Widtsoe
The Book of Mormon
The American Religion–Bloom
Feminist Morality–Held
Engaged Surrender–Rouse
Love Disconsoled—Jackson
Totality and Infinity–Levinas
Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day
The Elements of Style–Strunk and White
City of God—Augustine
Fear and Trembling–SK
Feminism and Political Theory–Sunstein
Evangelicals in the Public Square–various
Swallowing a Fishbone–Daphne Hampson
Situating the Self—Benhabib
Democracy and Tradition–Stout
Modernity and Self-Identity–Giddens
The Identity of Persons-Rorty
The Importance of What We Care About–Frankfurt
Socrates in Love—Phillips
Heaven’s Kitchen–Bender
Soft Patriarchs—Wilcox
Liberalism and Its Critics–Sandel
The Ethics of Identity–Appiah
Oneself as Another–Ricouer
An Ethics of Sexual Difference–Irigaray
The Book of Jerry Falwell–Harding
The Jewish Social Contract–Novak
The Angel and the Beehive–Mauss
You Have Stept Out of Your Place—Lindley
The Way That Leads There–Meilander
The Church and the Second Sex–Mary Daly
Liberal Equality–Gutmann
Finite and Infinite Goods–Adams
A handful of my favorites:
Jesus Before Christianity – Nolan (truly a favorite)
Jesus through the Centuries – Pelikan
Modern Women’s Stories – Craig
Our Nig (Sketches from the Life of a Free Black) – Wilson
Without Remorse – Clancy (truly disturbing overall and truly inspiring in one particular subplot)
I had one entitled “The Changing of the Gods” that I can’t find anymore and can’t attribute. For anyone interested in feminist theology, it was fascinating to read as a college student.
Oh, and the Harry Potter series (doesn’t quite fit, but I love the books)
The author of “The Changing of the Gods” is Naomi R Goldenberg. I’m just old enough that it takes me about 2 minutes to remember that “Google” is a verb.
I’ve got some old Utne Readers and dog-eared copy of EasyRider some boyfriend left years before I got married…
Elouise! I love Anne Tyler! I’ve read all her books. Patchwork Planet is my favorite, I just love Barnaby. But Digging to America is also excellent.
Basement shelves – comic books and graphic novels.
Pantry shelves – Cookbooks, books by cooks (like Anthony Bourdain’s tell-all)
Front room shelves – LDS history, Stephen King, Robert Parker mysteries (Spenser is the greatest detective in literature right now), whatever we just bought or borrowed from the library. Very little LDS fiction, just can’t seem to find anything I like.
Bedroom shelves- periodicals, my current reading material, old magazines
Under the bed – And They Were not Ashamed (oh the irony) and The Art of Massage for Couples
Kid’s room – enough children’s books that I could probably open a bookstore. I can brush of requests for toys from Target or a new video game no problem. My daughter has discovered I’m too weak to say no when she ask if “we can go buy a new book to read together”.
Re #66–Annegb, isn’t Tyler a delight? I wish we had more good filmed versions of her novels; The Accidental Tourist was no slouch as a movie; the made-for-TV version of Breathing Lessons (Joanne Woodward and James Garner) was just so-so, despite how fine the actors were. Saint Maybe, which Digging nudged down to Number 1B on my list, worked pretty well on film. Am I missing others?