Enough Space
It’s just about the end of another calendar year and time to put fingers to keyboard and draft some kind of New Year’s resolution list. I don’t like New Year’s resolutions on principle, since literally every day is the beginning of a new year-long cycle. And while the New Year, capital letters, is a logical time to start new routines, I don’t like the idea of having the chance to break a habit in, say, November, but waiting those six more weeks because it’ll make a good New Year’s resolution. Lazy. And self-indulgent. Modern American!
Nonetheless, it’s time to look in the mirror (with my glasses off) and get a vague perception of what I am and what can be improved quickly with minimal effort. And so, yet another reorganization of those favorite things of mine, these books.
Here’s what I’ve got: one tall seven-shelf bookcase; one bookcase with six shelves, two wide by three high; two two-shelf bookcases; one three-shelf bookcase.
All these shelves are just about filled as we begin, so the floor is the holding ground as I reassess-as-I-go. This is all a little bit like riding a train while laying the track right in front of me. And a little less like one of those puzzles organized into nine sections but only eight tiles, so you have space to move them around.
The goal in any organizational theory is to easily find that which is searched for. While alphabetically makes the most sense, I have a High Fidelity-inspired penchant for not organizing it alphabetically – while autobiographically would be ideal, my mind works less by when I got them or why and more, say, on their date of publication.
The double-wide contains all the poetry, first the texts, then the criticism. The middle right shelf has Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut – they belong together, set aside from everything else on the fiction shelf. It’s in the same vein as my taking the Beatles out of the CD rack and putting it on its own little shelf. I hold them in higher esteem, if not placing them on a higher shelf.
The big case has: top shelf – Old English stuff, Classics, Religious texts. It’s not for me to decide where myth ends and religious fact begins. It’s all old, and that’s good enough for me. Second shelf – Renaissance era; 19th century American and European. Third shelf – 20th century American and European, up through say 1960. Fourth shelf – Essays, Tolkien and all the Harry Potter books. Books always furnish a room, but the Harry Potters which grow in size since I got the first four in paperback and the last three in hardcover, furnish a room exponentially better. They get a side of the shelf. Nice to look at. Fifth shelf: Recent books, mostly hardcovers that fit well because this and the two lower shelves are bigger than the top four. Putting these together, also easier on the eye. Sixth and seventh shelves: History, non-fiction. Philosophy. Literary criticism.
Little bookshelf #1: Biographies on top, Beatles books on the bottom.
Little bookshelf #2: New York books on the top left, reference top right, Writing on bottom.
Three-shelfer: Travel, Baseball, Comedy, Film.
I’m convinced that reorganizing all this will put my mind at ease, at the very least reorienting it to work more efficiently and calmly. Defragging. If like in dreams your house is your mind, why not think it’ll make a difference? Why not blog about it?
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