(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I moved into a new flat and trialia wanted pictures. My room's still a mess &c so actual flat pictures can wait, but I DO want to show off my Major Big Effort, i.e. I finally have all of my books in one room again, readily accessible! (Regrettably, 'readily accessible' does not mean 'on bookshelves'. Some day my house with a room lined with bookshelves will come. Until that day, you have... well, I'll show you.)


My fabulously organised collection:

(you can also see bits of my room here. Clothes are hanging on the walls because I don't have a wardrobe or, um, a space where I could put a wardrobe, either.)

You don't think that looks organised, huh? Well, how about a 'before' shot?

OK, that is actually half of my room. (Yes, I have a piano. No, it's not mine, it came with the room. Yes, it is slightly annoying, but on the other hand, it's fairly attractive so long as you don't play it (sticky keys, not in brilliant tune...) so I may end up using it as a second bookshelf/desk/whatever.)

Slightly more detailed shot of Just the Books:


See, now you think that first photo's pretty impressive, huh? How's about some more detail shots of my beautiful, beautiful books?

My brilliant organisation:


Non-fiction, poetry, and misc:

'Skience', just ftr, includes a little bit of science (Darwin, theory of language) and a little bit of social sciences (sociolinguistics, Social Ethics, Waitangi history). This shelf only includes my favourite two textbooks (Social Ethics and sociolingustics) because - well mostly the others were too big, tbqh. Also, those aren't all my comics, just the ones that were in boxes with books - the others are in a big plastic container with some other miscellaneous stuff.

And this is my fiction and to-read bookshelf:


To be honest, it killed me some of the books I ended up keeping in boxes. This bookcase is really just the Greatest Hits and representative books - so Dorothy Sayers stands in for all crime fiction, Tessa Duder stands in for New Zealand realist YA, David Levithan and Rachel Cohn stand in for USA realist YA, and so on.

Check out the second row here:



Why yes, that IS every single DD book I own: all three of the published Door books, TBONWM, the YW books starting with my 20th anniversary SYWTBAW (the book imma get signed by DD some day - and retrospectively the book I'm so pissed I lost the dust jacket of, because it has awesome art), moving through the Corgi editions of the first four books (some of my favourite art on these covers - the Corgi HW is, to my mind, really stand-out), and then the Magic Carpet editions from Dilemma. Next to buy: To Visit the Queen (actually, I was convinced I owned that, but apparently not) and STEKR, which is going to be tough because it definitely won't be available second-hand here. Also on that shelf: the complete Alex and Tiggie series, two of my faves ever!

Now for some other pictures. First, the Tragic Books: the books that got ruined in the move (not bad considering half of these books sat in boxes in a leaky garage for a year and a half):
Luckily I have duplicates of the Wyndham and the coverless book (which is Anne Holm's I am David).

And then the books I loved so much, apparently I bought them twice (if you live in Wellington and would like some of these, except for TBONWM which I promised to shoeless_girl, let me know and we'll do coffee and you can have them.)


Some of these I'm especially boggled by: Essential New Zealand Poems? I bought that twice, really? This doesn't even include Mahy and Narnia books, of some of which I own three copies! (They're in the YA fantasy box and I can't be bothered getting them out for the pictures.) OTOH, I actually remember buying Year of the Griffin twice (I think it was in Wellington and I was in Christchurch, or vice versa, and I really wanted to read it right then.) And I know I bought the Gee for class last year - it was actually a serious drag going through the books and thinking 'shit, I really spent $25 on a second-hand copy of The World Around the Corner when I already owned it', even though I knew when I bought it that that was the case (a lot of my books were in Christchurch at the time, including great chunks of Mahy and Gee, and then I took a paper on... Mahy and Gee.)

ANYWAY. Look! Look at my books! All together for the very first time!

Comments

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

how did you end up with two copies of Looking for Alibrandi ? I'm curious whether they're teaching it in schools, because I remember the author commenting somewhere in the US edition that she found herself teaching her own book.

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

italics fail. You get the idea.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

And in fact, at least one of my copies was stolen from my school when I studied it! I think I stole/accidentally kept one copy, and we possibly already owned a copy, or something? But yeah, one of the copies definitely has the 'Queen Margaret College' stamp that you can also see on the deceased I am David.

We studied it when I was... maybe 12, 13, 14? I don't really recall. It definitely wasn't an externally assessed text (i.e. 15+), but that's all I can say for sure.

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

Aha!

Funny -- that's the age range that I was in when I read it, too, but it seems like it would resonate far more with students just a little older. The hard stuff (responsibility, suicide, seeing your family as people, losing your virginity) didn't hit us until high school.

[roselet.livejournal.com]

Aah! I don't live in Wellington but I am coming up next weekend (to see Neil Gaiman). Am I still allowed to steal books? As in, all of them except Asimov? (You're allowed to say no.)

[china_shop]

Is The Year of the Griffin the one where they pair off at the end by species, like the colour-coded pegasuses (pegasi?) in Fantasia? If not, I'm interested, and I'd love to do coffee, in either case. :-)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Although Year of the Griffin is a big favourite of mine, I have to admit that yeah, it's the one where they all pair off at the end. However, yeah! Coffee! Sometime... in the future! (I am wildly busy atm, but!)

[china_shop]

\o/ Let me know when you're free. :-)

[morbane.livejournal.com]

I would be SO interested in the Year of the Griffin and The Unicorn Sonata.

Pleeeeeeease.

[owlfish]

Happy new flat!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

:D thanks!

[phantomjerky.livejournal.com]

Yay pictures! I used to have a bunch of DD books (I think 19 1/2? The 1/2 would be Theobroma in Wizards, Inc.) but now I just have 2: The Wounded Sky and Stealing The Elf King's Roses. I gave the YW, FW and Star Trek books (minus The Wounded Sky) to a co-worker who was really interested in them :)We'll see how long before withdrawal sets in. I still get excited to see DD books in other people's collections lol

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Ah, I can't give books away, I feel too much of an attachment to them (in fact part of the reason why I have multiple copies of SYWTBAW is that I really hate to walk past them in a second-hand bookshop... I don't want them just sitting there, I want to take them home and love them and pet them and call them George.)

[trialia]

*gleeful squeak of joy* :D

I love your bookshelves! And we have WAY too much literature taste in common... XD

STEKR is a bitch to get hold of, but you're missing the Harbinger trilogy from your list as well, which is a lovely set of books that can easily be read without knowing anything about the StarDrive series. On the other hand, now I know what to get you for the next necessary present, eh Tui? :D

Edit: Also, the British edition of TVTQ, "On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service", has a far prettier cover than TVTQ, just so you know. :)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

\o/ I love my bookshelves too!!

re: Harbinger, I haven't actually read any of the franchise novels! I should hunt some down sometime.

re: Brit editions - yeah, the copy of BONWM that you can't see is, I think, the UK edition paperback, and I have a pretty good shot of getting hold of On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service second hand sometime, I think!

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

Drat, too late to steal more books :)

Let's do coffee sometime soon anyway?

I love that you're like me and unpack your books first - you know how important it is :D

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Sorry! Free books go fast around here! I would love to do coffee sometime, though. Do you happen to be going to anything (i.e. Neil Gaiman, who I'm seeing twice) at Writers and Readers Week?

Dude, I was SO excited to unpack my books - the only good thing about moving anywhere is bookshelving!

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

I am not going to anything in the Writers and Readers week, unfortunately. Could meet you before/after an event though, if you want to squee :)

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

You don't have In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, by any chance? I am 99% sure either you or Meg have it but I still haven't been able to chase it down with either of you. At least you should be able to rule it out if you've just been through them all! In which case I can go harrass Meg. :P

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I definitely don't have it - I actually had to google to find out who wrote it (did you know it's also an album?) Meg swears she doesn't have it below, though!!

[megaffe.livejournal.com]

well, I borrowed it then (I think) gave it to you to return to Lucy, which is why we keep asking if you have it. I certainly don't have it any more, cos I just resorted all my bookshelves myself.
But Lucy, in a spirit of oops, book missing-ness, I'll try and get you another copy, as I've never known you to be wrong about where your books are! Or Tui to actually lose a book - misplace for years, yes, lose, no. and as we all know, and can see below, I'm chronically absentminded about such thing.

Lovely Bones

[suchroadslead.livejournal.com]

Do you want a new copy of the Lovely Bones? I was given one by a family member who didn't really want it, and I'm not really fussed about owning it either - if I want to read it again, I can get it from the library.

Re: Lovely Bones

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Hi! I was going to write to you in the Physical Realm but keep forgetting - but I was going to say I got the beautiful photos and thank you so much for them!

TBH I had planned on never re-reading The Lovely Bones ever, ever again (terrific book, not so terrific nightmares) but ty for the offer!

[megaffe.livejournal.com]

what pretty, pretty bookshelves.

I think your other copy of swallows is actually mine - well, for the long history, you gave it to me about ten years ago, then I gave it back to you when you were studying it, because you left your other copy in Chch. Similar story for the year of the griffin, maybe (without the you giving it to me first, as I recall, but don't quote me on that as you probably did and I've just forgotten!)either that, or did I give it to you? I definately recall some form of book-exchange surrounding it! I wouldn't mind the Asimov :).
ps. I deny all knowledge of the crimson kings! (except, you know, the initial borrowing and reading of it).

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Are you sure about that though, because isn't the copy of Swallows I gave you the one with the blue & yellow spine (like the four between peter duck and missee lee, bottom shelf of the last picture)? Neither of the swallows I have look like that. I do have some books of yours tho - The Female Eunuch, The Merlin Conspiracy, and I THINK I also have your copy of Red Seas Under Red Skies - at least I have two, one the big trade pb and one an ordinarily sized pb, so let me know as I think one of those is yours but not sure which!!

[megaffe.livejournal.com]

Ah, in which case - how on earth do you come to own three copies of swallows?!
And you're the miscreant who has my Female Eunuch - I was just about ready to buy another copy, thinking I'd left it in Dunedin.
I agree I own a copy of RSURS, and haven't seen it for a while, so it being in your keeping is believable... I really don't recollect or care which copy though.
Oh, also - lunch tomorrow? my class finishes at 1ish