What's on your bookshelf?

That sounds like a very interesting read - off to check it out now! 

This is how I look at it! 

I read a lot online. Some reports are really interesting and relevant - like this one:

Kindness, emotions and human relationships: The blind spot in public policy 

You can download it free here: https://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/project/kinder-communities/?download=view

Sustenance.

Sanctuaries.

Greetings. I have not read this entire Thread, but I Post to mention somethings which may be popular yet not mentioned...

Does anyone else have certain books - from old, or paperback - and then have what is said to be "The same book" Digitally, but upon reading it there are certain changes? Not spelling/scanning mistakes, but differences such as chapters split or combined, or whole sentences added which were not in the original. (Often the added content makes no sense to the rest of the Book!)

Also, some books, paperback or otherwise, are different/edited, and it is impossible to get the original wording. 

...The two books I have in mind are Bambi, and Black Beauty. Try as I might, I cannot locate the original worded version of "Black Beauty". I could list a few examples of the changes, but was just wondering if anyone else has this, um, annoyance/problem with any other books they know of...?

Also, I understand that they edit some Books because the language is so 'archaic', but the edits made sometimes go against the Plot... Does anyone else know what I mean, Thanks...     !

Oh all sorts! 

Plenty of non-fiction (mostly human biology leftover from university/wildlife/epidemiology; one of my most visually appealing books is a great big hardback about the black death embellished in gold and red, with skeletons and rats and ships on the cover). 
I also have a decent variety of cook books (though most of my cooking/baking is done from memory, so used only occasionally).
Then I have pet care books for almost very species I've ever kept and a few other animal-y non-fiction books (I really enjoyed A Street Cat Named Bob). 

Fiction-wise, some standouts on the wall-O-books are, by genre;

Sci-Fi/Sci-Fi comedy; The Martian, all the Red Dwarf novels, Colony (another from RD writer Rob Grant).

Fantasy; SO MUCH TOLKIEN. The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, The Silmarillion, Beren and Luthien, etc. etc. I also have the History of Middle Earth set about the inspiration and story behind the books, put together by his son. (It's a hefty 3-book set of doorstoppers printed on tracing-paper-thickness pages; terrifies me to read it because I'm always worried I'll damage the thing!)
His Dark Materials; the trilogy, La Belle Sauvage and a great big lexicon.
I'm also another Harry Potter fan; the books I had since my childhood are so dog-eared that The Goblet of Fire is missing its entire cover. It looks like a just-barely-bound-together manuscript! Lost count of the number of times I've re-read them. 
A Song of Ice and Fire; all of it, plus the world of ice and fire backstory-book (you've probably figured that I'm very into lore/information-gathering when I get into a series)
Good Omens, by Pratchett and Gaiman, is one of my all-time favourites. 

Animal fiction; Still got a few of the classics that have transferred from my childhood bookshelves. White Fang was always my favourite of the genre and so is a proud member of my "falling apart" collection.

Mythology; The Mabinogion, my version's in both English and Welsh because I was trying to teach myself a bit of the latter when I got it. It's a neat mythos. :)

Crime; Not generally a fan, but I have ALL the Holmes. 



I'd feel weird if I wasn't surrounded by books. We had so many growing up (literally several corridors lined with bulging bookshelves and more in the bedrooms) that other children used to joke that I lived in a library.

I'm absolute pants at reading I'm really slow, this is exasperated with fiction as I struggle to visualise the story. My wife can read a novel in a day the same book takes me weeks. I'm alright at factual stuff like law, it must be the ND in me but it makes perfect sense, when learning most around me really struggled to grasp concepts. Anyway of tangent, I'm 37 but my favourite book is still a kids book, "The Woff" by Jeremy Strong. I remember it being read in infants school when I was 5 as group reading at the end of every day, I absolutely loved it, my mum had to special order it, still have it now. 

Yes I started with Blyton. My favourites were the Adventure series with Kiki the parrot, the Five Find-Outers and Dog, the school series with Mallory Towers and so on. 

From Blyton. I went on to Christie after reading Cat Among the Pigeons. All those school mistresses being murdered! Needless to say murder didn't figure much in Mallory Towers. I also started getting interested in science fiction, reading Asimov's, then Silverberg, but the one novel that spoke to me most powerfully was John Wyndham's The Chrysalids. 

A degree in literature meant reading became more of a chore than a pleasure, but Dino Buzzati brought on delightfully spooky shivers with two short stories, one about where a train travellers sees everyone is fleeing towards the South but the narrator never finds out why, and Settle Piani (Seven Floors), a hospital story with a difference. 

The TV series made me interested in the Frost in May quartet about a young woman's struggle with her Catholic faith and the abuse she experienced through it and it is still a regret I missed the last televised edition of that. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance intrigued me too, 'spoke' to me, as that was about one man's search for understanding. 

The Next big Thing became vampires, after discovering Barbara Hambly's Those who Hunt the Night. She has since the early 90's written several more with James Asher the spy, his doctor wife and their problematic relationship with vampire Don Simon Ysidro. I enjoyed Anne Rice, but later on do think she lost the plot a little.

I have gothics both older and modern, mentioned Patrick MC Graph's Asylum elsewhere I think. Nowadays I get to review quite a lot, as I get plenty of free stuff read - there are tantalising opportunities to get paid occasionally too, but so far early bird and all that. 

I'm interested in mythology, psychology and how these impact the larger body politic, so I have most of Campbell's books, Frazer, something by an Anne Baring on the deleopment of the Divine Feminine, Riane Eisler. I have books on Jung and the Gnostics. I used to dabble in astrology and still have some books on that, but I grew to dislike intensely the theosophical underpinnings it was based on, or has been, and the way it is used to diminish and categorise others.

A few art books I have. 

And a whole bookcase of the tools of the trade, that language, English. My own linguistic skills pushed into the background, but it has put food on the table for over 20 years now. 

Since we're renting and therefore seem to end up moving fairly often, books have had to be downsized.  I also lost a load of my books in a former business involvement.  We've discarded most of our fiction, since we've found Kindle does adequately for those.  Kindle not so good for anything that isn't a novel though.

Categories (as I look around current room):

* Horological related (clocks/watches/metalworking),

* Computer science related (work + interest),

* Electronics engineering related (work / sort-of interest),

* Mathematics (current main interest),

* War/conflict related (sort-of interest),

* Bit of science / economics,

* Sailing (money no object, would do more),

* Books about English,

* Books about Trivium / Quadrivium (current education interest),

* Maps,

* Bushcraft/outdoors (on-off hobby),

* Some RPG (occasional fun).

That covers most of the categories of mine I think.

Loads of horticulture books and scientific dictionaries currently reading Bruce Dickinson what dose this button do 

Great story! 

With a bed like this! 

How'd you fancy a house like this?

My mum still has all my books from childhood, I would love to be surrounded by them but others in the home not so keen! Kids have tons on their shelves but not really my cup of tea!

Yes, I've heard that one.  I like micro-fiction and flash-fiction, too.  It's like poetry.  You don't have a lot of space, and you have to make every word count.  Some of my favourites of my own stories are 500-worders.  I've got a few 200-worders, too.  Here's one you might like.  A bit of humour, in spite of the subject...

OLD ADAM – a backwoods tale

The old guy sups his whiskey.  Sniffs.

 “Couple years back, fellah lived up top of the mountain road.  Had a cabin there.  Scratched a living trapping.  Came down for provisions, that’s all.  Kep’ to hisself.”

Another sup.

“Well…  he doesn’t show for a week.  Then two.  Folks starts wonderin’.  Bunch of fellahs goes up to look.  Cabin door’s open.  Empty, though.  They search around inside, find a journal he’d been keeping.  Last entry was two weeks before.

Something’s up the woods.  Awful sounds in the night.  Going up tonight to investigate.

“They take their guns, follow the trail.  Two miles in, they find his boot.  Nothin’ else…  ‘ceptin’ his foot, still inside.  They do the sensible thing.  Skee-daddle.”

The bar-room glooms up.  Clouding out there.

“Next day, a possee gets up.  All the townsmen.  Every one – ‘ceptin’ me, who’s dead drunk.”

He shakes his head.

“Never see’d any of ‘em again.  Twenny-six men, three generations.  Gone.”

 A sudden wind bangs the shutters.

 “Just me left now.   Me… an’ thirty lonesome womenfolks.”

He finishes his drink, pours another.

“Guess I oughta go up there, too.”

A twist in his mouth.  Sparkle in his eye.

“Thing is, just ain’t found the time.”

Yes, Hemingway was right! Sometimes hard to switch off your editing head when you are in writing mode.. I really like the concept of micro fiction - went to a brilliant workshop on this once. Brilliant because the writing was focused on an object, like that very famous shortest of all short stories: 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn' 

This is sometimes attributed to Hemingway: 

en.m.wikipedia.org/.../For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn

I think I've still got every book I've ever had - including my childhood comic book albums.  They're up in the loft.

My friend is Devon is a true bibliophile.  He once inherited the entire contents of a second-hand bookshop when the owner gave up.  He has a small flat, and they're stacked up everywhere in towers.  On the stairs, on the kitchen tops, around the walls of his rooms.  Thousands of books.  AND he's read them all.

That cartoon is so true for me - as is the first one you posted.  I certainly, too, understand the frustration.  Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month.  You have the whole of November to write a novel of 50k words - about 1,800 a day.  I've done it a few times.  In fact, the first novel I wrote was done during NaNoWriMo in 2011... eventually hitting 75k words.  I've been trying and trying for months to get something started, and have a whole folder of first chapters.  I can't work to a plot.  I just have to have a basic idea and see where it leads me.  I'm determined to try to do something this November.  I've got half a day left to find 1,800 words from somewhere.  At the moment, I haven't a clue...

It's good exercise, though, because it forces you to simply focus on getting words down.  You don't have time to pretty them up or edit anything.  As Hemingway said, it's just about getting black on white!