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In answer to your questions: Tom Send a noteboard - 24/11/2009 05:07:07 PM
Did you type all this up now?
Yes.

Are you very bored?
No, I was taking a break from work and I am proud of my library so I took the opportunity to share.

Why does contemporary pop fiction go with fairytales? I ask because it sounds like something I would do.

It just seemed...right. The books aren't really literature so they need to go somewhere else (other than IN the bookcase, not that there's any room in there), and some of them didn't fit in the narrow bookcase with the poetry so I moved them to the top of the bookcase with literature and have them with the contemporary fiction.

So you change topics in the middle of a shelf without any transitional book?
Oh that's not true at all. You see, my Russian biographies are the following people: Bakunin, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Pasternak and Nadezhda Mandelshtam's memoirs about her husband, the poet Osip Mandelshtam. Pasternak and Mandelshtam shift from the poetry well and Bulgakov ties in with the contemporary non-poetic works. They're literary biographies. The non-literary biographies are in my Russian history bookcase (Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Peter the Great, Rasputin, Nicholas II et al.).

Again, this sounds like it could be one of mine bookshelves. They fit together without it being apparent why they fit together.
I think it's quite apparent. They're all fanciful books and all very well written.

You really like animal bookends?
Try archaeological reproductions.

Did you have a shopping spree at the Met?
Several, and I keep buying from them from time to time. I have an Egyptian statue, a bust of Dionysus, a wall hanging of the Three Graces, etc.

So you have split your philosophy books? According to any pattern?
The philosophy books in my bedroom are books on Russian thought, including Russian Orthodox spiritual thought. I have Berdyaev, Ivanov, a book on the Russian Avant-Garde, Soloukhin, and others down there. The philosophy books in the library are the traditional Western philosophers and political theorists - Nietzsche (lots of him), Kant, Spinoza, Descartes, Hegel, Marx, Bakunin, and more contemporary people like Edward Said, Christopher Hitchens and Noam Chomsky. Classical philosophy is, of course, with the other books in Greek and Latin. See, there's a lot more I could have written but didn't.

Old occult and esoteric or new? If the former, I can see how it fits.
It's both, with the former providing the bridge to the latter. The first book is Cornelius Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia in Latin, followed by Brill Publishing's Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (the hardcover one volume version) and then Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century by Richard Kieckhefer (in Latin with English commentary). From there it goes to the Lemegeton and Ars Notoria and then I feel like I can just put any crap after that, like Blavatsky's unabridged Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine in hardcover, Carlos Castaneda books, Nostradamus's prophecies, Crowley's Magick and back to my Missale Romanum, which presents the Latin mass for the entire year in a book big enough for (and probably intended for) an altar. See, it came right back around to Latin...

why do these grammar books not go with the ones in bookcase five? Is it because you have Middle East gathered together?

Bookcase five is exclusively Modern Western languages. Much of my bookcase on Ancient Egypt has to do with its language at all stages of development, from my complete Pyramid Texts in three huge hardcover volumes (with German commentary) to the complete Nag Hammadi codices in Coptic, and grammars and dictionaries covering each phase separately. I have books dealing exclusively with Egyptian poetry, the Book of the Dead, and a whole host of other topics.

Modern Eastern languages are mixed into my non-Western history bookshelf (books such as Bahasa Indonesia, A Higher Sanskrit Grammar, Nahuatl as Written, Translating Buddhism from Tibetan and the Chinese dictionaries and grammars that are in the best condition are there - a lot of Chinese stuff is in the basement, though) or, in the case of Arabic, Cantonese and Hawaiian, on the bottom shelf of the dictionary stand.

The ancient Near East Languages (including Old Persian and Gatha Avestan) are grouped topically with books about the ancient Near East, which is directly below books on Islam, Sufism and classical Arabic (note the distinction between that and modern standard Arabic, which is on the dictionary stand), which is on the same shelf as the beginning of Judaica. Judaica, of course, blends into the history of religion on the shelf next to it (the Egypt one).

Chronology by topic or publication date?

By topic, of course. Who gives a damn about when a book was published, as long as it's still relevant?

Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
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How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 10:57:57 AM 1783 Views
Alphabetically. Easier to find what I'm looking for. - 24/11/2009 11:11:22 AM 1214 Views
I always know where my books are in the system. - 24/11/2009 11:13:34 AM 1489 Views
I'm sure you do. - 24/11/2009 11:15:14 AM 1584 Views
Re: I'm sure you do. - 24/11/2009 11:17:00 AM 1416 Views
Yeah. - 24/11/2009 11:27:09 AM 1516 Views
Re: Yeah. - 24/11/2009 01:03:49 PM 1436 Views
Bookshelfs are an outdated concept. - 24/11/2009 01:34:07 PM 1572 Views
This has occurred to me - 24/11/2009 01:42:01 PM 1585 Views
I feel sure that it is the future of book storage. - 24/11/2009 03:41:33 PM 1448 Views
Re: I feel sure that it is the future of book storage. - 24/11/2009 03:48:48 PM 1461 Views
With the added bonus of... - 24/11/2009 02:57:50 PM 1329 Views
Good point - 24/11/2009 03:42:28 PM 1459 Views
Re: - 24/11/2009 05:18:21 PM 1405 Views
LOL! - 24/11/2009 03:20:33 PM 1559 Views
Re: LOL! - 24/11/2009 03:47:05 PM 1430 Views
Yeah... - 24/11/2009 07:27:03 PM 1502 Views
horizontaly - 24/11/2009 03:45:34 PM 1482 Views
Hmmm. I mix horisontal and vertical. - 24/11/2009 03:48:14 PM 1405 Views
You make it sound like I only have one - 24/11/2009 03:59:38 PM 1588 Views
Yes. I meant it as an encompassing word, not to restrict numbers. - 24/11/2009 04:30:38 PM 1440 Views
In answer to your questions: - 24/11/2009 05:07:07 PM 1505 Views
Re: In answer to your questions: - 24/11/2009 05:23:51 PM 1502 Views
I do have some forms of synesthesia. - 24/11/2009 05:29:30 PM 1485 Views
Aha! - 24/11/2009 05:36:20 PM 1473 Views
Which Arabic dictionaries do you have, exactly? - 24/11/2009 08:50:16 PM 1217 Views
I am not fluent in every language I have a dictionary for, no. - 24/11/2009 11:10:22 PM 1403 Views
Well, I'd hate you more if I spoke Russian. - 24/11/2009 11:43:56 PM 1462 Views
Re: I don't. - 24/11/2009 04:13:44 PM 1423 Views
Re: I don't. - 24/11/2009 04:31:56 PM 1510 Views
Re: It isn't always neat. - 24/11/2009 05:17:25 PM 1380 Views
Re: It isn't always neat. - 24/11/2009 05:26:16 PM 1625 Views
Re: Two different planes of organisation. - 24/11/2009 05:38:15 PM 1486 Views
Re: Two different planes of organisation. - 24/11/2009 05:44:34 PM 1447 Views
Re: why should they not be? - 24/11/2009 05:50:16 PM 1415 Views
Re: why should they not be? - 24/11/2009 05:52:52 PM 1451 Views
Re: You show a clear demarkation of labour in some ways. - 24/11/2009 06:09:28 PM 1445 Views
Re: You show a clear demarkation of labour in some ways. - 24/11/2009 06:12:15 PM 1410 Views
Well, they should fit together. - 24/11/2009 04:28:20 PM 1470 Views
Re: Well, they should fit together. - 24/11/2009 04:32:48 PM 1413 Views
Hmmm. - 24/11/2009 08:29:40 PM 1493 Views
Re: Hmmm. - 24/11/2009 10:17:36 PM 1477 Views
I don't... anymore. - 24/11/2009 04:53:04 PM 1564 Views
Re: I don't... anymore. - 24/11/2009 04:59:44 PM 1503 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 04:55:12 PM 1527 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 05:03:20 PM 1539 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 05:06:46 PM 1360 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 05:18:57 PM 1367 Views
Incidentally... - 24/11/2009 06:22:28 PM 1528 Views
Re: Incidentally... - 24/11/2009 06:23:31 PM 1613 Views
Re: Better real estate - 24/11/2009 07:54:03 PM 1445 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 08:14:59 PM 1328 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 24/11/2009 08:47:38 PM 1515 Views
Actually... - 25/11/2009 01:43:54 AM 1296 Views
Re: Actually... - 25/11/2009 11:16:06 AM 1445 Views
Re: Actually... - 25/11/2009 05:25:09 PM 1426 Views
Apparently I'm just very boring in this regard. - 24/11/2009 09:28:08 PM 1438 Views
Re: Apparently I'm just very boring in this regard. - 24/11/2009 10:18:54 PM 1485 Views
Re: Apparently I'm just very boring in this regard. - 25/11/2009 03:28:10 AM 1372 Views
Re: Apparently I'm just very boring in this regard. - 25/11/2009 11:17:08 AM 1398 Views
Star Wars gets one book shelf, everything else gets what's left...... - 24/11/2009 10:30:26 PM 1429 Views
Mainly by topic/genre - 24/11/2009 10:47:37 PM 1578 Views
Re: Mainly by topic/genre - 25/11/2009 11:07:39 AM 1421 Views
Neither, actually - 25/11/2009 08:28:33 PM 1535 Views
The better booksn on one shelf then the worse it gets..... - 24/11/2009 11:28:20 PM 1451 Views
How do you decide which books go where on the good shelf? *NM* - 25/11/2009 11:10:00 AM 792 Views
i have 4 different bookshelf areas... - 25/11/2009 02:33:35 AM 1261 Views
Re: i have 4 different bookshelf areas... - 25/11/2009 11:13:11 AM 1504 Views
My bookshelves are a mess. It started out alphabetical/author, then favorites, and now .... - 25/11/2009 04:55:20 AM 1563 Views
Re: See, I don't know what my favourites are. - 25/11/2009 05:35:50 AM 1469 Views
Are your books happy with this? - 25/11/2009 11:14:13 AM 1410 Views
Obsessively - 25/11/2009 01:38:08 PM 1340 Views
Re: Obsessively - 25/11/2009 07:31:06 PM 1505 Views
Hmmm. - 09/12/2009 02:02:44 PM 1336 Views
Hmm.... - 25/11/2009 10:32:28 PM 1440 Views
Re: Hmm.... - 25/11/2009 11:22:23 PM 1437 Views
Mainly by series. - 26/11/2009 02:31:52 AM 1302 Views
Re: Mainly by series. - 26/11/2009 09:06:31 AM 1357 Views
I know what my favorites are, of course. - 26/11/2009 03:51:45 PM 1427 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 26/11/2009 02:13:10 PM 1302 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 26/11/2009 04:47:45 PM 1413 Views
Re: How do you organise your bookshelf? - 26/11/2009 06:59:12 PM 1493 Views
Rebekah organises our DVDs like that. - 27/11/2009 02:39:38 PM 1439 Views
Re: Rebekah organises our DVDs like that. - 27/11/2009 04:36:56 PM 1463 Views
Re: Rebekah organises our DVDs like that. - 27/11/2009 07:59:26 PM 1542 Views
It is an A. - 29/11/2009 10:19:50 AM 1468 Views
By Genre, then world, then author, then chronologically - 29/11/2009 09:26:36 AM 1378 Views
Re: By Genre, then world, then author, then chronologically - 29/11/2009 10:10:25 AM 1383 Views
Re: By Genre, then world, then author, then chronologically - 29/11/2009 11:43:01 AM 1583 Views
Books I want to keep and books I plan on giving away - 30/11/2009 03:27:07 PM 1285 Views
Re: Books I want to keep and books I plan on giving away - 30/11/2009 03:29:03 PM 1394 Views
Perfectly. - 30/11/2009 04:47:34 PM 1539 Views
Re: Perfectly. - 30/11/2009 05:08:43 PM 1405 Views
Re: Perfectly. - 01/12/2009 04:51:17 PM 1453 Views
Re: Perfectly. - 01/12/2009 04:55:58 PM 1552 Views
I do not believe so. - 01/12/2009 05:02:30 PM 1402 Views
just checking. *NM* - 01/12/2009 05:03:49 PM 765 Views
Like this - 03/12/2009 05:38:07 AM 1547 Views
Re: Like this - 03/12/2009 09:08:27 AM 1514 Views

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