books on library shelves

[mutepointe]

You folks are literate. You have just got to click on this link. Warning. Sit down. Swallow beverages first.

Interior Decorator Without a Clue

[A-Musing]

I'm swallowing my beverage from the bottom of the cup.

I's neater...more streamlined that way.

[MTGuru]

In keeping with the trend toward streamlined kitchens, I remove the labels from all my canned foods. The gleaming metal cans make a post-industrial fashion statement in my pantry, and meals become so much more interesting. Green beans and enchilada sauce, tomato soup and pickles - a dining adventure every day!

I also strip the labels from all my prescription medications, for a streamlined medicine cabinet. Got a headache? Just take one of everything ...

[emmline]

These are some excellent ideas for simplified and more gracious living. Thanks all.
I am now contemplating renaming my children Do Re Mi and Fa, for a list that rolls
liltingly off the tongue. (I made up the word "liltingly" for aesthetic reasons.)
Ok, so I'm going to go spray paint my dog and two cats linen white now, since I have
learned that a neutral color palette is in vogue.



(on the topic of books on the shelf: my brother has had a lifelong habit of turning entire sets--The Encyclopedia Britannica,
the Complete Wizard of Oz series--upside down on the shelf so that the wear on the the spine would be more balanced.
At least we could read the spines, albeit by a head tilt in the opposite direction.)

[Doug_Tipple]

I had an old lady friend who was a writer of lesbian romance novels. She had a fairly extensive library filling a whole wall of a room in her house. During a time when she was bed-ridden, her caretaker took it upon herself to rearrange Valerie's books by size, so that everying looked neat on the shelves, as least in her mind. When Valerie went to look for a book, which had been shelved in alphabetical order by author, all she could say was "stupid woman", referring to her caretaker. It was my task to help put the books back in order.

[Denny]

so, ah....

size is important to some people
just not lesbian authors?

[s1m0n]

I had an old lady friend who was a writer of lesbian romance novels. She had a fairly extensive library filling a whole wall of a room in her house. During a time when she was bed-ridden, her caretaker took it upon herself to rearrange Valerie's books by size, so that everying looked neat on the shelves, as least in her mind. When Valerie went to look for a book, which had been shelved in alphabetical order by author, all she could say was "stupid woman", referring to her caretaker. It was my task to help put the books back in order.

I read just today that Samuel Pepys, restoration-era diarist, father of the Royal Navy, and inventer of the glass-fronted bookcase also kept his personal 3,000 volume collection graduated by height, with book one being the smallest and book 3,000 the tallest.

Here's Pepys' library in 1690, and below at Oxford's Magdalen College (to which he bequeathed them) along with the 8 'presses' (bookcases) he'd had shipwrights at the Naval Dockyard make to his design.

[izzarina]

I am so going to do that to Mr Izz's book collection. If nothing else, it will give me a hearty chuckle when he goes to look for a certain book.

I am now contemplating renaming my children Do Re Mi and Fa, for a list that rolls
liltingly off the tongue.

We refer to the Izzlets by number, and the funniest part was that they know their number. It makes life easier when you pile into the van, and need to do a roll call. But, I do admit Do, Re, Mi, and Fa sound nicer.

[Nanohedron]

Interior Decorator Without a Clue

"Why on Earth did you do that??"

"Well, I don't actually read them."

"Congratulations. You have somehow managed to both succumb to common pretense, and yet slip the mundane."

[s1m0n]

He's making progress - only a week ago he learned that it's bookcase, not a 'wall-unit'.

[Lambchop]

What some people won't do for attention!

[Innocent Bystander]

He's making progress - only a week ago he learned that it's bookcase, not a 'wall-unit'.

Nonsense! It's a press! (Actually, only if it has doors.)

[s1m0n]

He's making progress - only a week ago he learned that it's bookcase, not a 'wall-unit'.

Nonsense! It's a press! (Actually, only if it has doors.)

Note the pictures of the ur-press in my post about Pepys.

[fearfaoin]

I read just today that Samuel Pepys, ... inventer of the glass-fronted bookcase

Before him, all bookcases were fronted with tile.

... [Pepys] also kept his personal 3,000 volume collection graduated by height, with book one being the smallest and book 3,000 the tallest.

I bet he took a ruler with him to the book store.
I'd hate to have to add to the middle of that stack.

[chas]

In keeping with the trend toward streamlined kitchens, I remove the labels from all my canned foods.

I buy bulk spices from Indian markets. The bags don't go well in my spice cabinet, so I I have to find alternate vessels for them. I try to keep them roughly alphabetical, with non-hot stuff on the lower shelf and hot stuff on the upper shelf, but they get mixed up regularly. I put masking-tape labels on them, but those have worn off. Most have distinct looks, but some do not. So I have to remember cumin is in an old thyme jar, coriander is in an old Flintstones vitamins jar, cardamom is in a pint ball jar, garam masala is in an old nutmeg jar. . . I'm sure it bugs my wife. The other day I got a call at work, she needed turmeric (to make homemade pH paper, nothing so pedestrian as cooking with it). Found an old kalamata olive jar with bright yellow stuff in it, but called anyway to make sure.