Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Anatomy of a bookshelf

While in London, I acquired a significant amount of books. This many, to be precise, plus a few extra.


Needless to say, my luggage weighed twice as much on the return trip and I've had to completely rearrange my bookshelf in order to fit them all. Which then gave me the opportunity to finish organizing my books using the Library of Congress classification system. Naturally.

Here is my finished bookshelf:

Anatomy of a bookshelf

Outside the black dotted line: 
Mostly Bs (Philosophy, Psychology, Religion) and Hs (Social Sciences). One D (World History) and one M (Music).

Everything inside the black dotted line: 
P - Language and Literature. Surprise, surprise. 

  • PG - Slavic languages, Baltic languages, Albanian language. That would be my collection of Russian literature.
  • PR - English literature. My bookshelf is completely dominated by British lit, mostly from the 19th and 20th century. 
  • PS - American literature. Small, in comparison with my British lit collection.
  • PZ - Fiction and juvenile belles lettres. I still retain quite a few of my childhood and young adult novels. Children's librarian, remember?
And of course there a few PAs (Greek & Latin language and literature), PTs (German literature, etc.) and PNs (General literature) tucked away. As well as the entire Harry Potter series, a section of books about London, and two versions of Shakespeare's complete works. And the stack of books in my closet. 

Only after I completed this project did I realize that I'm currently reading my massive copy of The Count of Monte Cristo; once I've finished, there won't be any room for it on my shelves.

English major problems. 

1 comment:

  1. Do you sort through your books and get rid of some as you bring in new ones? I try but it doesn't always work out the way I planned.

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