I am quite proud of my shelves. Even though they’re overflowing right now and could do with some form of categorization, I am still filled with delight every time I look at them. So I’m taking a leaf out of Britt and Letizia‘s books and accepting the challenge posted by Jilane Hoffman … and showing you my bookshelves! Mind you, I have not read every single book on these shelves. In fact, the total number of books that I haven’t read is 40. Eep.
So to begin with, below is my bottom shelf. As you can see I arrange my books by height, and tallest starts at the bottom. I no longer have room for books on my shelves, so horizontal organization is unfortunately inescapable. To make things more interesting, I’ll tell you my favourite and least favourite of each shelf. In this case, my favourite is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the least favourite is How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
The shelf above that is dedicated to shorter books, which now that I look at it seems to hold mostly Young Adult titles. Again, no room so horizontal shelving it is! Favourite: The Fault in Our Stars, and Lease Favourite: American Gods.
My books become noticeably shorter as we continue going up. Also, this holds one of my favourite collections. Yay Sophie Kinsella! Favourite book: A tie between The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and Twenties Girl. Least Favourite: A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Yay paperbacks. Don’t you just love how small paperbacks are? On this shelf alone I can count 7 books that I have yet to read. Favourite: The Night Circus (no contest!). Least Favourite: Message in a Bottle. I hate you, Nicholas Sparks.
And finally, what I like to call my “pop culture” shelf, since it mostly contains manga volumes and books based on TV shows. Favourite: Pretty Maids All in a Row. Least Favourite: Princess Ai (manga).
Finally, above my desk I have a collection of Arabic books and a few English classics. I rarely read Arabic these days because Arabs tend to get really long-winded and descriptive, and I have no patience for that. Actually, some of these are merely translated works! Goes to show just how much I can stomach it. I actually don’t remember my favourite and least favourite books here.
There are some people who judge others based on what they see on their shelves. Now that I’ve bared all to you, what do you make of me? Incidentally, do you see any familiar titles? Why don’t you show me your shelves? 😀
Zen Scribbles 
Maybe I WILL post my shelves. O_O But it might be less interesting since I don’t like keeping my least favorite books. >_>
Dare I ask what you did to American Gods? :3
Sure, but I don’t remember. All I know is that it’s gone. All I can imagine is that I was in such a furious rage that whatever I did to it was so terrible I don’t even remember.
Oh dear. All that paper… wasted! D=
Life’s too short! Get rid of the Sparks to make room for something you’ll love.
I am having such a good time taking a peek at others’ shelves. Thanks for playing!
Oh, and I’m dying to know why you don’t like A Visit From the Goon Squad. Inquiring minds want to know! 😮
I may just have to do that!
No, thank you for posting the challenge. It really is fun to see what others have on their shelves! 😀
As for that book… I simply did not like how the author wrote every chapter from a different perspective. There were so many characters I couldn’t keep track, and many of the short stories (because that’s really what they are) do not relate much to each other. Some said it’s clever, but I merely thought it was pretentious. =/
I can see how you could see it that way. I just re-read the short story, Safari, in that collection, and I must say that I enjoyed it. Maybe little bites of the book go a long way?
Perhaps! I admit I enjoyed the first story, but then things sorta went downhill from there. 😦
And I love the sushi plush. Where did your fiance find it? 😮
That would be on Think Geek! Isn’t the cutest thing ever? I adore it.
Interesting… Do you read more paper or more digital? Because those books don’t seem nearly enough for you. 🙂
Definitely more paper, especially now that my eyes are getting affected by the glare of computer screens and whatnot. Reading words on a screen for too long ends up hurting me. =[
😦
I think you need more shelves in the future… 🙂
(Don’t you as well just love to daydream about that time in the future when you will have your own private library?)
I definitely do.
And yes! I always do that. In fact I do believe I wrote a post about that before, haha.
Love seeing bookshelves! I’m trying to only keep books I loved / might re-read as I have tons piled in cupboards!
I’ve been told I should do that, but I can’t bear to part with any of them! I view them as little memories assembled before me to look at whenever I wanted.
I absolutely love your shelves too. I so know what you mean about loving your book shelves. I can’t wait to get some really nice shelves, that are kind of like the ones in Beauty & the Beast.
Thank you, Devin! Oh, those are lovely. 😀 I can’t wait to have my own personal library myself; it’s something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a little girl.
Hooray! So glad you played, too. I love you how you arrange your books by height. I used to do that as well. It makes them look like happy little soldiers, doesn’t it?
It was fun! And yes, now that you mention it, they do look like happy soldiers, haha.
I finished ‘The Night Circus’ not too long ago. Not my typical type of read, but I loved it. The writing was beautiful. Magical, really. 🙂
My thoughts exactly! I was in awe of the author’s ability to weave such beautiful prose. Also, you might want to check out The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her own Making – equally gorgeous words!
Wow, that title’s quite a mouthful!
Haha, yes it is. But it’s quite a charming book I assure you. 😀
I absolutely agree about Nicholas Sparks. I don’t understand why he’s so popular at all! I want to know which of the one’s you haven’t read is first on the list to get to and why?
Yay a kindred spirit! He mostly follows the same formula – two people meet, have a lovey dovey romance, then someone dies. He almost always kills someone.
As for what I’m planning to read next, I’m considering The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. It’s a murder mystery, where the victim is Humpty Dumpty. How can you resist something like that? 😉
So fun to see some of your books too – and I love how you pointed out your least and most favorite of each shelf! I see that you have Anne Rice and Stephen King, I like them too (although some of King’s books gave me nightmares so I have to be careful which ones I read!).
I loved Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire. It really portrays how vampires should be, unlike some… others. *clears throat* As for Stephen King, I have only read one of the books on my shelves! I’m too intimidated to read the other two, haha.
I love this idea for a post! There’s nothing I enjoy more than snooping and browsing other people’s bookshelves. My shelves are all double stacked at the moment, which I don’t like because it means people can’t see everything that’s on them. 😦
Loving that you have some Buffy on your shelf too! I have a whole mini bookshelf dedicated bookshelf for my Buffy books, LOL.
You should post pictures of your own shelves! I would love to snoop around them too. 😀
As for Buffy, I am such a huge fan. I scrambled around for anything Buffy when the show was still on TV. My favourite is Spike. 😉 Actually, Pretty Maids All in a Row is a novel featuring him and Drusilla. It’s fantastic and I do recommend it.
Hehe maybe I will. 🙂
Spike is my super duper favourite too! Funny enough I tried to get Hold of the Pretty Maids books so many times when my obsession was still fresh and the world kept conspiring against me! I did read another one that had a lot of Spike in it though – it had a yellow cover and was set during season 5/6 I think. Did you ever read Queen of the Slayers?
Aww, that sucks. I think you should try finding it again. It tells you a lot about how Spike was like in the past. 🙂 And I don’t think I have… there were just too many of them!
I should. 🙂
Ahh okay, there are a lot of them!! I only ask because it takes place after season 7 so I was really excited to read it, but then when I did I didn’t like what they did with it at all. 😦
Granted, when I was reading it I was hoping there would be lots of Spike related sadness. 😉
Ohhh. I get your point. 😉 I heard there were a lot of graphic novels too!
Hmmm…what strikes me most is that I don’t see a single book of mine on any of your shelves!! 🙂 Remedy that oversight on Amazon today!!
Haha, that’s subtle. 😉 I’ll be sure to check them out.
I see Reaymond E Feist – Magician! That 4 book series was my favorite for a while. : )
I’m afraid I can’t say the same. =[ I absolutely did not enjoy that book. Took a lot of time and was boring for me.
LOL – I was into epic fantasy at the time…. Now I’m more urban fantasy – much faster pace – funner reading and less – well – epic. {g}
Haha, well I admit I was turned off by the absolute wordiness of it. 😉
Unread books can easily become a shelf-eating monster which grows exponentially.
That’s an interesting analogy! And it actually does fit. Pretty soon I will no longer be able to double stack!
Just love seeing all these rows of books!
Aren’t they lovely? 😀 Thanks!
I love looking at your shelves, Zen! I I arrange my books by height as well 😀
All the cool kids do it. 😉
wow thanks for sharing your shelves!! woot. 🙂 i love looking at bookshelves that are overflowing. geeky much, that I am 🙂
Haha, I understand completely! When I visit someone I’m usually on the lookout for bookshelves, and when I don’t find any I become really disappointed.
I get all excited looking at shelves of books. I haven’t unpacked mine yet, but I’m getting there.
You should post a picture when you’re done! 🙂
Augh! Why didn’t you do this before 3/4 of my books went into storage? Now I want to do this, but most of my shelves would be dull research books.
Also, we have a lot of overlap and that makes me happy. 🙂
Aww, that sucks. I actually only saw this recently, so.. =[
Glad to hear that we have books in common too! One of the best things is walking up to someone’s shelves and being able to recognize a bunch of titles. 😉
Not to mention finding new things to read!
I absolutely love books and If I were to sort out all of the books in my home it wouldn’t be a two minute job!
The more books the better, is all I can say. 😀
Definitely! 🙂
Every time I get my books organized I end adding to my collection until they’re all over my desk in stacks. I wish I had a big bookshelf like yours.
Ack. I was reading through my posts and noticed I hadn’t replied to your comment! So sorry. D:
I don’t think my bookshelf is big enough! Right now there is no more room for any book, and I have to stack them on my desk too, haha.