Scott Hanselman posted a tweet yesterday with a photo of a bookshelf, asking people to reply with photos of their bookshelves. I was bored last night, so I took a few photos. This morning, I posted them to Twitter. A lot of other people replied to him too, with some cool photos.
I thought I’d post my photos here too. Of course, a large portion of my reading these days gets done via Kindle, iPad, and laptop, so my physical bookshelves aren’t necessarily reflective of what I’m reading these days.
It would be nice to have organized bookshelves, but what I have is really just piles of stuff, sometimes on bookshelves and sometimes on the floor or on various horizontal surfaces. It seems like the piles just grow, until they become structurally unsound, at which point I need to toss some books and/or reorganize. That’s one of the many reasons why ebooks are so great. I can buy as many as I want, and they never become a fire hazard.
I feel a little like I need to justify and explain these photos a bit, but maybe it’s better if I just let them speak for themselves. Or maybe not. The first one is a pile of random computer books, most of which I’ve read, but a few of which I never really got around to. The second is a pile of paperbacks, mostly Vonnegut, that I got from one of my brothers. (I can’t remember which brother.) I haven’t actually read most of them. (Oh, and there’s a couple of Ghost in the Shell DVDs on top of the paperbacks.) The third is some random SF paperbacks, all of which I have read. Mostly Gibson and Zelazny. The fourth is one of several “to be read” piles of graphic novels. There’s some stuff in there that I’m really looking forward to, including Grant Morrison’s X-Men run, a few volumes of Bill Winningham’s Fables, and some Usagi Yojimbo. (I’m a little embarrassed by the Vampirella book in that pile, but I’ll own up to liking Vampirella. It’s goofy cheesecake, but it’s fun.)