My Bookshelves

I just rearranged my book shelves yesterday. I have been needing to do it for a while—we have limited book space and I have been collecting books from a variety of sources. The event that finally pushed me to act was that I was at my parents’ house and I went through all my stuff that was still sitting in their basement. I found a lot of my old books from my childhood and high school years and decided to bring them home. Plus, I had taken quite a few books from Andy’s mom’s shelves that she was looking to get rid of.

I like to order my books by topic. I like to browse my shelves. I feel happy with their order and with the memories of all the happy, interesting, and fascinating times that I’ve spent with them. So that I could put all my new books onto the shelves, I had to pull some off and take them downstairs. I decided that all the dusty scriptural commentaries, as well as all the Institute student manuals could go. I also took down a bunch of Ensigns and relegated them to the basement as well. That gave me some more space to play with. Of course, that space was located on my church shelves. So, I decided to first shelf all my Mormon women books. This is my new reading obsession. I am reading books by historians about Mormon women. I am reading essays about Mormon women. And in so doing, I have collected quite a few things that deserved their own place on my shelves. I wanted to give them a place of honor and dignity. The top shelf of the church section is mostly the writings of prophets and biographies of the prophets. I wanted to put them side by side with the prophet books. Should I move them over to the next shelf so that they could be on the same level with the prophets? But, then I would have to displace my Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Rings. I felt it would be better to keep the church books on one shelf. So, I moved down all the other general authority writing to the third shelf, and put my Mormon Women’s collection together on the second shelf below the prophet section. Now, I am wondering if I should split the prophet collection and put half on the top shelf, half on the second shelf. And do the same with the Mormon Women so that they could stand side by side.

From Andy’s mom, I placed a book called Mormon Sisters with chapters on women from the early days of the church in Utah, a volume of poetry by Carol Lynn Pearson, and a tantalizing book about women by Belle Spafford (I can’t wait to read and see how the context of her times shaped her views of women in the church), plus a few other things. I added the history of the Relief Society, Sisters in Spirit, and the Emma Hale Smith biography. 4 Zinas is still sitting out—I want to look through it some more before I shelf it. When I pulled together the new things I have gotten, and put some of my other books with it—collections of women’s conference talks, a book about Minerva Tiechert, books by Chieko Okasaki, Anne Poelman, and Sheri Dew, I was happy to see that I had a goodly amount. And I only plan to add to it in coming weeks.

Next, I started to rearrange my fiction section. I extended my children’s shelf extensively by moving a basket and stacking books on their sides. I put all my children’s books together on one shelf. From my parent’s home, I brought quite a few. First, my set of Little House on the Prairie books that I got them for Christmas when I was about 8 . I had inscribed my name and address on them in a childish scrawl. The list price on each of the books was 1.95. I also found my set of The Chronicles of Narnia. I had also put my name on their cardboard cover as well as affixing two Muppets stickers, including Animal and Miss Piggy. There was Island of the Blue Dolphin and a Sprout book that my first grade teacher had given me as a prize for reading a certain number of books. Plus, I also located battered copies of Charlotte’s Web and Anne of Avonlea. All these went together. Then, I added The Goose Girl, Harriet the Spy, The Bridge to Terabithia, and Walk Two Moons that I had picked up from garage sales.

I went down to the bottom shelf and looked at all my classics. I rearranged them somewhat my time period and genre, and then added in the books I brought from home. Most of them, I read in high school English classes: a couple of Hemingways, Slaughterhouse Five, The Mill on the Floss, and Metamorphoses. And then some of my personal books. The tragic Tess of the D’ubervilles, a well loved copy of the Princess Bride. Looking at all my books made me yearn for the time to pick them up and reread them.

After I was done, I surveyed my shelves with content. I felt happy with the books that I added to our collection, and felt that all in all, the books we have is a good reflection of the people that we are. And I noted with anticipation and excitement the empty spot in the Harry Potter for book 7 that comes out on Saturday.