So its been roughly a week, and I’m checking up on the progress of my bookshelf project. I was very busy (*cough cough* busy procrastinating *cough cough* but I’ve at least picked up all the books that were lying on the floor or stacked on top of the shelves. So, without further ado, here is the new and improved Library de la Mrsmarlenehawthorne…
The bottom shelf is now two rows of fantasy and historical fantasy: much better, finally! And for those of you who were wondering, the Order of the Phoenix randomly placed in the middle is actually fake – a hollowed out version with a secret compartment for my top secret stash of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans!
Now my ‘favourite’ fiction shelf, with the very battered books as I like to think of them – JK’s finest, of course, but also Divergent, The Hunger Games, Blood Red Road, and the more obscure ones which remain firmly rooted in my heart such as the my perpetually incomplete Darren Shan books and a gem of a discount bookshop find called Dark Parties by Sara Grant. Mostly Dystopia, the genre that has won my heart.
The classics bookshelf! Bookmarks sticking out everywhere, as you can see – I procrastinate reading classics sometimes too. I also made the difficult decision of putting The Lord of The Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia on this shelf, too, rather than fantasy or deeo fantasy. I’ve had that copy of Narnia since I was seven, which I received along with a toy mermaid from what I can remember. Over a decade later and it still remains one of the most intelligent, insightful, captivating reads to have ever existed. Easy enough for a seven year old to read (or at least seven year old me, but then again that was the only thing I was good at as a child) but now, nearing adulthood, I still pick up tiny clues and insights that I missed the last time I read it. If you haven’t read it yourself – why the hell not! It’s deep fantasy for people who don’t like deep fantasy and probably comes highest recommended on my list.
Finally the most asthetically pleasing area of the bookshelf, my… ummm… teen reads? ‘Popular’ books? It’s a wierd mix of ‘girly’ diaries and John Green or Nick Hornby. It makes sense to me to think of it as all the fiction that is set in the real world and current ish time (although it’s really an alternative universe when you think about it, otherwise all the things in the book would have to have happened in real life, and they haven’t, so…). But I’m really quite proud of how it looks, and hopefully when I get a bit of free time ( I don’t get free time) I’ll sort the others to look nearly as good.
Now the top two shelves, which you first see when you enter. The series are very muddled in order, but are at least together, and there’s a vague semblance of the front stacks ( they’re double layered) being fantasy, although you can see that from the Micheal Morpurgo book, for example, that it isn’t quite. But it’s way better than it was! And by the time I sorted this out I’d been going for hours, so with my laziness it’s impressive that the genre is together at all.
And finally, the shelf you still can’t see, hidden behind my work folders. It’s actually probably the most sorted of all the shelves there, with clear fantasy all the way through, and some amazing authors: Derek Landy, Malorie Blackman, Scott Westerfield and more. Once again, if I ever get the chance, I’ll sort it out properly into favourite to least favourite but for now, this is the total of all my updated bookshelves.
If anyone’s done the same as me, please let me know: any big projects completed over the school holidays? For me, this was huge, as there are about 500 currently ‘living’ in my bedroom. What about you guys? Are you a hoarder or a borrower? Let me know in the comments. Good luck! And…
Musings Of A Teenage Cleanbag 