New heights of nerdiness, part two
Part one.
So, how to organize the books? My first thought was that we would look up the Dewey numbers for all the nonfiction on librarything, and shelve them in Dewey order. We haven't done that . . . yet. We did make some rough categories, though:
Judaica: this was pretty much all in one place to begin with, but we did some gathering of the strays. After a short debate, we put all the Jewish themed fiction here, too.
Religion/spirituality: The "woo-woo" category. We've got yer Buddhism, yer energy healing, yer stuff by people like Riane Eisler . . . it's kind of a broad category. The Xian Bibles are there too, next to Bullfinch's Mythology. We're going to have to do some major chunking down in this category.
Literature: Poetry, essays, books about poetry and essays, a few plays, the Pelican Shakespeare, a cheapo Barnes and Noble Shakespeare my first grade teacher gave me as a sixth grade graduation present, Plato's dialogues -- a bit of a mess. Humor. Thurber and Erma Bombeck are in there.
Reference: The compact OED, shelved with a magnifying glass. Some collegiate dictionary we picked up somewhere. Latin, French, Spanish, and German dictionaries (the Yiddish and Hebrew dictionaries are in with the Judaica). Fowler's. Strunk and White.
Science/nature: Jane Goodall. A book about dinosaurs I picked up at the Museum of Natural History. A Sand County Almanac. A bunch of field guides. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is there too. Maybe I should move that to Travel.
Local interest/travel: We've actually got quite a few books about Baltimore. Then I shelved the other travel books in order of increasing distance from Baltimore: The C and O Canal towpath, Shenandoah National Park, Gateway National Park, a couple books about the Appalachian trail, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, a couple books about California.
Law and politics: The few books I saved from law school. A few law journals. Student Protest. Some other more or less random stuff.
Cooking: the cookbooks were all together, but we've moved them to make room for more kitchen stuff in the kitchen.
Health: Some books about diabetes and women's health. A weight training guide. An old, old copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves we picked up for the historic value.
Biography: Like it sounds. There's some stuff in there that is more biomythography, like the James Herriot books. A small category, and alphabetized, yay!
Fiction: This is actually one of the smaller categories. They all fit in one bookcase, and they're shelved alphabetically, which makes me very happy.
Juvenile: Mostly beat up old paperbacks from my childhood. The Little House books. The Secret Garden.
thedeepquiet has a nice old copy of The Wizard of Oz, and a really cool, ancient book about birds. There are a few picture books, and the Harry Potters. Winnie the Pooh, in English and Latin.
Comics: Dykes to Watch Out For. Calvin and Hobbes. Pogo. A few comics zines.
Lesbian/feminist/queer: I've done a lot of weeding in this category, but there's some good stuff there. We put the queer fiction and biography here too -- except the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, for some reason. I've got some AIDS stuff too, including a catalog from an art show that happened around the time David Wojnarovich died. I've got quite a few lesbian pulps -- no original editions, sadly -- and as a private joke to myself which is no longer all that private I shelved one author's two pseudonyms next to each other (she actually had more than two pseudonyms, but I only have books from two of them). I have a bunch of old issues of Lesbian Ethics. I cannot find my copy of The Female Man, which is pissing me off.
Music and Art: This is actually mostly music. Guitar, voice, music theory. A few art books. Henri Matisse's Jazz.
So that's where we are for now.
thedeepquiet thought it was cute how I got into the alphabetizing. "Remember how I alphabetized your spice rack right after we got together?" I asked her. That's when we knew it was love. Good times.
So, how to organize the books? My first thought was that we would look up the Dewey numbers for all the nonfiction on librarything, and shelve them in Dewey order. We haven't done that . . . yet. We did make some rough categories, though:
Judaica: this was pretty much all in one place to begin with, but we did some gathering of the strays. After a short debate, we put all the Jewish themed fiction here, too.
Religion/spirituality: The "woo-woo" category. We've got yer Buddhism, yer energy healing, yer stuff by people like Riane Eisler . . . it's kind of a broad category. The Xian Bibles are there too, next to Bullfinch's Mythology. We're going to have to do some major chunking down in this category.
Literature: Poetry, essays, books about poetry and essays, a few plays, the Pelican Shakespeare, a cheapo Barnes and Noble Shakespeare my first grade teacher gave me as a sixth grade graduation present, Plato's dialogues -- a bit of a mess. Humor. Thurber and Erma Bombeck are in there.
Reference: The compact OED, shelved with a magnifying glass. Some collegiate dictionary we picked up somewhere. Latin, French, Spanish, and German dictionaries (the Yiddish and Hebrew dictionaries are in with the Judaica). Fowler's. Strunk and White.
Science/nature: Jane Goodall. A book about dinosaurs I picked up at the Museum of Natural History. A Sand County Almanac. A bunch of field guides. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is there too. Maybe I should move that to Travel.
Local interest/travel: We've actually got quite a few books about Baltimore. Then I shelved the other travel books in order of increasing distance from Baltimore: The C and O Canal towpath, Shenandoah National Park, Gateway National Park, a couple books about the Appalachian trail, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, a couple books about California.
Law and politics: The few books I saved from law school. A few law journals. Student Protest. Some other more or less random stuff.
Cooking: the cookbooks were all together, but we've moved them to make room for more kitchen stuff in the kitchen.
Health: Some books about diabetes and women's health. A weight training guide. An old, old copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves we picked up for the historic value.
Biography: Like it sounds. There's some stuff in there that is more biomythography, like the James Herriot books. A small category, and alphabetized, yay!
Fiction: This is actually one of the smaller categories. They all fit in one bookcase, and they're shelved alphabetically, which makes me very happy.
Juvenile: Mostly beat up old paperbacks from my childhood. The Little House books. The Secret Garden.
thedeepquiet has a nice old copy of The Wizard of Oz, and a really cool, ancient book about birds. There are a few picture books, and the Harry Potters. Winnie the Pooh, in English and Latin.
Comics: Dykes to Watch Out For. Calvin and Hobbes. Pogo. A few comics zines.
Lesbian/feminist/queer: I've done a lot of weeding in this category, but there's some good stuff there. We put the queer fiction and biography here too -- except the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, for some reason. I've got some AIDS stuff too, including a catalog from an art show that happened around the time David Wojnarovich died. I've got quite a few lesbian pulps -- no original editions, sadly -- and as a private joke to myself which is no longer all that private I shelved one author's two pseudonyms next to each other (she actually had more than two pseudonyms, but I only have books from two of them). I have a bunch of old issues of Lesbian Ethics. I cannot find my copy of The Female Man, which is pissing me off.
Music and Art: This is actually mostly music. Guitar, voice, music theory. A few art books. Henri Matisse's Jazz.
So that's where we are for now.
thedeepquiet thought it was cute how I got into the alphabetizing. "Remember how I alphabetized your spice rack right after we got together?" I asked her. That's when we knew it was love. Good times.