list your BOOKCASE here

[bobthejeep]

I wonder,how does everyone organize their books? And what does everyone think if there were a fire or something and they lost them? What book would be the first replacement book? What one book would you miss the most? And do you lend your books out? And do I really need to know all this, hmmmmmmmmmm???

1) I go by author. If there is more than one book by the same author, then by title-- unless it's a series, then it's chronological.

2) If there was a fire and I lost all my books, I'd probably move into the library.

3) The first book to replace would be the Bible (of course). Second would be Ordinary People by Judith Guest or Hamlet.

4) I DO NOT lend out my books. I will only let one of my friends touch my books because I know she is just as crazy about them as me.

[bobthejeep]

Here are the highlights (and it was hard to cut the list down):

Catch Me if You Can
Fahrenheit 451
The Secret Garden
A Clockwork Orange
Ender's Game
Ender's Shadow
Walk Two Moons
Count of Monte Cristo
The Yellow Wallpaper
The Princess Bride
Ordinary People
Stephen King (Dark Tower series and other non-horror)
Bourne Identity
Bourne Supremacy
Bourne Ulitmatum
Harry Potter
Holes
Love Story
Shakespeare
Huckleberry Finn
Roswell High series
Brave New World
The Importance of Being Earnest

[IWilKikU]

I do alpha by author, then chronological by publication if there's more than one per author, unless there's a sequal published out of chronology (like King's Black House).

If I lost all my books I would miss my sexy leatherbound classics. I have nice editions of Shakespeare's complete, Notre Dame de Peris, and a collection of writings by Voltaire. The first ones to be replaced would be the first ones I found in a used book-shop for cheep. You can find some treasures there.

I lend out, give away, and lose books all the time. Usually it makes me sad, because I love my books, but then I think about the person who finds it and reads it and has thier entire life reformed and becomes famous all because of a book they found on a parkbench. Then I become insanely jelous because that was my book dammit!

[dumptruckrabbit]

wow you sound super organised, mine has vague sections along the lines of philosophy, art, french lit., german lit, russian lit., american lit. feminist, psychology, but mostly is potluck if i happen to find anything in it.
here are my speciall favorites on the bookshelf of my heart ( and also, less metaphorically, on my shelf made of wood)
alice in wonderland
the portable Nietzche (portable if youre in the habit of carrying around a wheelburrow wherever you go)
my vladimir Nabakov collection
Dostoyevsky collection (house of the dead, rime and punishment, bros. Karamazov, the village of stepanchikovo...)
kathy acker collection
nathalie sarraute
encyclopedia of philosophy
Satre, camus, beauvoir collection
chuck palanuihk- choke+ fight club
borges- labrynths
coupland-generation x
bs johnson- christie malries own double entry
Arthur Koestler- the act of creation, the ghost in the machine
well, thats some of them, i didnt realise there were as many...

[mtpspur]

Shelf 1: The Shadow paperback reprints, Rafael Sabatini paperbacks, Edgar Rice Burroughs Venus series plus The Mad King, Fu Manchu series, Zorro paperbacks, Godzilla novels

Shelf 2: Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, Adam Hall's Quiller series, H. Rider Haggard paperbacks (Alland Quaterman/She series), Murphy's Law books (humor)

Shelf 3: The Lester Del Ray Oz reprints--all of Baum and a good start on Thompson's run (stopped at #29), Highlander novels (TV series), Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, 24 TV series novels, John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey series

Shelf 4: Rafael Sabatini/Haggard hardcovers

Shelf 5: Haggard contnued, Talbot Mundy's Jimgrim novels, Shadow hardcovers by Gibsonwith 2of his Norgil the Magician series, Red Ryder/Dick Tracy Whitman editions, Complete Brigadier Gerard by A. Conan Doyle, misc OZ modern novels (HungaryTiger Press ediitons)

Shelf 6: Pollyanna hardcovers (7 of them), Batman material-numerous, Pulp facsimiles and reprint material--numeroud HighAdventure magazines

Shelf 7: Dashiell Hammet and numerous pulp detective anthologies including the Hardboiled Detectives

[bootyqueen]

Oliver Twist
Nicholas Nickleby
Bleak House
Little Dorritt
Great Expectations
Story of O
The Complete Works-Virginia Woolf
The Complete Works-Oscar Wilde
The Mists of Avalon
Hamlet
King Lear
Macbeth
The Great Gatsby
Madame Bovary
Jane Eyre
Dubliners
A few Harry Potter books
Little Women
Goddess-About Marilyn Monroe
The Sexual Life of Catherine M
She's Come Undone
Last of the Mohicans
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Women in Love
Anna Karenina
The Color Purple
Sula
Le Morte D'Arthur

I can't remember any more....

[Jarndyce]

Hmmmmm.

I think my favorite book at home is my first American edition of All Quiet on the Western Front. I'm a bit of a WWI freak.

Dickens, Hemingway, Garcia Marquez, etc., etc.

[Jarndyce]

Arthur Koestler- the act of creation, the ghost in the machine

I bought Ghost in the Machine at a used shop in Charleston a few years ago, but I've not read it yet. It sort of sits there, haunting me.

Darkness at Noon was one of those books that I'd call formative for me.

[Bookworm Cris]

Dunpeal said:

anyone out there read Sword of Shannara? Caves of Steel?

I´ve read Caves of Steel (Asimov) and loved it! I´m a big Asimov fan, and if you read Caves of Steel, continue reading the robot series, empire series and the foundation series (it´s a big story told in many books). Well, I loved it.

About the bookshelf... I usually borrow books from my brother, who has an entire room in his house full of books (and CDs and DVDs...) and does´nt like to lend them... except for me (hi hi..) . Most of my favourites are his.
In my house, we have lots of technical books (from me, my husband and daughters), reference books, spiritual books (not only the Bible, but books about spiritualism, yoga, etc..). I also have my collection of childhood classics that I kept and gave to my daughters (they actually read some of them), full of good stuff. Not to mention some books I really like and have:
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Ordinary People (Judith Guest)
The Prophet (Gibran Kahlil Gibran)
Illusions (Richard Bach)
The Thorn Birds (Colleen Mc Cullough)
A Way of Being (Carl R Rogers)

And many books in my computer, some still unread...

[ladykate]

So... wow... I'm so impressed at the copious number of books listed here... I organize my books by topic (well sort-of) and by ideas/ authors/ subjects I usually clump together in the deep recesses of my OCD mind... there is a method to my madness but it would be difficult for me to articulate. :-)

Here are some samples from my bookshelves: (in no particular order- It would be horrific to have to choose favorites... I already feel a little nauseus about choosing one on my profile)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
A Confederacy of Dounces by ... O'toole
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
All the Harry Potter Books!!!!
The Prophet by Kahil Gibran... I have a whole shelf for Gibran
The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice... an whole other shelf
C.S. Lewis- Till we have faces, The Naria Series, Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed... another shelf
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Dracula by Bram Stoker
A whole shelf of Thomas Merton books
Jesus' third way by Walter Wink
Jesus: A revolutionary biography by John Crossan
Who wrote the Bible by... Friedman
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
The Bible
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
Portait of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
there is too much... I'm too tired to continue

I also have a ton of text books/ research books etc... I dread moving... why can't I collect something light weight... like stamps? :-)

No, No, No! I would never abandon my books... they are like pocketsize friends to can carry with you...
oh ... books how they have changed my life...

Thank you for reading this....

Long Live Literature!

[valvaljean]

Here's a few from one shelf

Ship of Fools - Katherine Anne Porter
Victor Hugo - Graham Robb
The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
One Hundred Best Poems for Boys and Girls
A Book of Famous Poems
The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Vinegar Puss - S.J. Perelman (hilarious)
Nouveau Larousse Elementaire (french dictionary totally in french that I would recommend to anyone who wants to make a tremendous improvement in french)

[Schokokeks]

I organise the books in my shelves chronologically according to the time they have come into my hands , that is bottom shelf left contains my first books ever (laaarge writing and looots of drawings and pictures ), followed by teenager school books and so forth. As I have never changed the order, I can easily trace back what I have read five years ago, which is very interesting to see and smile at . The last book I bought, now residing on the top shelf first from the right, is Antigone by Jean Anouilh. I'm already dreading the moment when I will move to university flat, having to leave all these books behind...

[grace86]

I thought I was the only one who dreamed of creating a library from one of the rooms in my house! But I, sadly, also have most of my books in boxes in the garage (AAAHH). So naturally they are not too organized. But here are some of my favorites:

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Precious Bane - Mary Webb
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Paradise Lost - John Milton
She - H.R. Haggard
King Soloman's Mines - H.R. Haggard
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings - Tolkein
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
The Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Emma - Jane Austen
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I have tons more, now they are going to rebel on me because they are not listed!!

[rachel]

Since we have over a thousand literary and reference books plus language books I will just do one shelf.
Pride and Prejudice_Jane Austen
Rebecca_ Daphne du Maurier
Sherlock Holmes_special edition -all original drawings by Paget-A.C.Doyle
law dictionary
legal reasoning
English Grammar for Students of French-jacqueline Morton
Celtic Myths and legends-Peter Berresford Ellis
Robinhood
Fellowship of the Ring-Tolkien
Two Towers-Tolkien
Return of the King-Tolkien
Illuminata-Maianne Williamson

[superunknown]

I've only been actively pursuing books in the past two months or so and I'm only 17 anyway, so there isn't too much. I've got some stuff in English, some in Spanish, some in French. This is just what I know from memory, so I may be missing out a few things. This is just my book shelf though, there's tons of others all around the house that are my parents'. The list is rather messy with no order whatsoever:

My intellectual shelf:
Shakespeare - "Hamlet," "The Merchant of Venice," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Othello," "King Lear," "King Henry IV Part 1"
Dave Eggers - "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and "You Shall Know Our Velocity"
Johnathan Safran Foer - "Everything Is Illuminated"
Mark Twain - "Tom Sawyer," "Huck Finn," and "The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories"
Milan Kundera - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
F. Scott Fitzgerald - "This Side of Paradise," "The Great Gatsby," "Tender is the Night"
George Orwell - "Animal Farm," "1984"
John Steinbeck - "Of Mice and Men"
Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World," "Eyeless in Gaza," "The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell"
William Golding - "Lord of the Flies"
J.D. Salinger - "The Catcher in the Rye"
Oscar Wilde - "The Complete Works"
Alexandre Dumas - "The Three Musketeers" (present from my grandmother, though I don't think I'll ever get round to reading this particular version, as I'd rather read it in the original French and anyway if I'm going to be reading anything by Dumas any time soon it'll be "The Count of Monte Cristo")
Jack Kerouac - "On the Road"
Ernest Hemingway - "The Essential Hemingway"
Arthur Miller - "Death of a Salesman"
William Faulkner - "As I Lay Dying"
Franz Kafka - "Metamorphosis"
Homer - "The Iliad," "The Odyssey"
James Joyce - "Dubliners"
Harper Lee - "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Toni Morrison - "The Bluest Eye"
Haruki Murakami - "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World"
Mikhail Bulgakov - "The Heart of a Dog"
Vladimir Nabokov - "Lolita"
Joseph Conrad - "Heart of Darkness and Other Stories"
H.P. Lovecraft - "The Call of Ctuhluh and Other Weird Stories"
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - "Cien años de soledad" and "Cronica de una muerte anunciada"
Mario Vargas Llosa - "La guerra del fin del mundo"
Jorge Luis Borges - "Ficciones"
Julio Cortazar - "Las armas secretas"
Ernesto Sábato - "Informe sobre ciegos"
Voltaire - "Candide"
Moliere - "L'ecole des femmes"
Guy de Maupassant - "Pierre et Jean"
Carama Laye - "L'enfant noir"
Jean Giraudoux - "La guerre de troie n'aura pas lieu"
Henri Alain-Fournier - "Le grand meaulnes"

Non-intellectual shelf:
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter books 1-6
J.R.R. Tolkien - "The Hobbit," "The Lord of the Rings"
Dan Brown - "Angels and Demons," "The Da Vinci Code"
Ben Elton - "High Society"
Stephen King - "Salem's Lot"
David Henderson - "'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix"

And, on the very day I learn to speak Russian fluently, I'm gonna fill my shelves up with Dostoevsky first and foremost, then Tolstoy, then Bulgakov and Chekov and Gogol and all the rest. Till that day, I'd rather not go too much into Russian lit, as I prefer to read it the way it was meant to be read and, with a country that has such an amazing history of literature as Russia, it's well worth taking a few years learning the language to reap its bounty.