Other People’s Bookshelves #85 –Anna O’Grady

Hello and welcome back to the series Other People’s Bookshelves. Every so often here on Savidge Reads we welcome a guest who takes over the blog and feeds into the book lust we all crave by sharing their shelves. This week we are off to Sydney, where we are joining the wonderful, wonderful  Anna O’Grady, who is responsible for me hearing about many a wonderful read and even sending me  one or two from Australia that she really, really wants people to read. Like Charlotte Wood’s amazing The Natural Way of Things, which if you haven’t read by now you must. Anyway, Anna has kindly invited us to have a gander at her bookshelves with a nice cup of tea or two and some lovely treats, though the Violet Crumbles are all mice. Before we have a peruse of her shelves though let’s let Anna introduce herself a bit more…

I come from a third generation of booksellers – so you might say that books have always been my destiny and they certainly are my passion. My grandfather was a Polish bookseller and collector of rare books before World War II. Sadly his bookstore and most of his collection was destroyed during the final bombing of the city of Poznan. There is only a handful of books that survived, but one of them is an extremely rare hand-printed book of Japanese poetry. My mother carried on the tradition of family bookselling and married a man who was first trained as a printer, but went on to work in a small publishing house. As far back as I can remember our tiny apartment was always full of books and often full of writers having big political discussions around our kitchen table. I always loved reading, but rebelling against ‘following in my parent’s footsteps’ – I vowed not to work in a bookshop. I left Poland at the age of 19. It was really hard to start a new life with limited language skills and no friends and family, but I quickly discovered that bookstores were the best places to cure my homesickness and help me understand new countries. Here I came across old friends –  classics and authors that I’d read over the years, but  I also discovered a the whole new world of books and authors that I’d  never heard of. It was not long before my vows were forgotten and I started working in a bookstore. Although I moved countries a few times, I never left the book world, spending my working hours in bookshops in England, Switzerland, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. I made a move to the publishing side about three years ago and although I do miss bookshops, I also enjoy this different way of ‘making’ books.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

There is no way that I could have possibly kept all the books I read, but I did become very creative in finding new ways of stacking books ;-)….. My current library has over 3000 books, and I regularly do some ‘pruning’. I keep books by all my favourite authors (and there are quite a few of them) and I collect books in a couple of specific areas. Although I reinforced the floors under the part of the library that holds most of my hardcovers, I often pray that my little house does not collapse under the weight of all these books. I am also trying to make more use of my local public library to reduce the load on my bookshelves.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Yes, I definitely have a system going. First my books are divided by the three languages in which I read; secondly they are divided by fiction and nonfiction. Nonfiction is divided into subsections: history/politics, arts, nature etc. with two special subsections in which I collect books about history of women and books about books, libraries, reading etc. My fiction section is divided by continents and then by the country of the author’s origin, the two biggest parts being dedicated to Canadian and Australian writing. I also have a special section for classics and poetry … and then there are of course my various stacks, books to be read later, books to be read now, books that I am dipping in and out of etc. etc. Yes, I know it’s all a bit mad.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

My first recollection of books I bought with my own money are The Moomins by Tove Jansson. I was probably about 7 or 8 when they started appearing in Poland and I saved money for them in my little piggy bank and yes I still have them. I still love them and have added to the collection over the years.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

My guilty pleasures are some of the horror novels (especially Japanese) and lots of mysteries, but I am not embarrassed by them and they live on the shelves in perfect harmony with all other books.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

This is the hardest question – I honestly could not name a single book. It would be more like an armful of books. I would definitely want to keep my original Moomins, but I also have an amazing collection of signed books. Most of these carry memories of unforgettable encounters and long conversations with extraordinary writers –  these include books by my favourites –  Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Gunter Grass, Peter Carey, Richard Flanagan, Jose Saramago, Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, Anthony Marra, J.K Rowling and so many more. I also should single out my 1^st Canadian edition of Life of Pi. Sorry, I know it sounds like a lot of name dropping, but over the years I have been very privileged as a bookseller to meet some truly remarkable people.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

Probably some of the American classics of the 20^th century, I distinctively remember being in  high school and discovering a  whole shelf of them in my parent’s library – books by Joseph Heller, Irvin Shaw, Ernest Hemingway. I had a preference for dark stories and that has not changed.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

If I really loved it yes I would go and buy it, but I no longer buy all the books I want to read. I really enjoy using my local library.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I bought this week The Mothers by Brit Bennett, on a recommendation of my favourite Australian bookshop: Readings in Melbourne. (I am ¾ into it and I would highly recommend it too) and I borrowed a copy of The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan on the recommendation of another author Aoife Clifford, whose reading tastes I always respect. I do have to add here that both you and Kim from readingmattersblog are very trusted and frequent source of recommendations too.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Nothing that I really would lose my sleep over, but I always have lists of books that I would like to read.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Well it is quite a mix of books that I have – so the only thing that I hope people would say is that I have an open and curious mind.

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A huge thanks to Anna for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves.. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Anna’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #84 – Tom Connolly

Hello and welcome back to the series Other People’s Bookshelves. Every so often on Savidge Reads we welcome a guest who takes over the blog and feeds into the book lust we all crave by sharing their shelves. This week we are off to London, where spookily I will actually be for a festival, and are being put up by author Tom Connolly who has kindly invited us to have a gander at his bookshelves with a nice cup of tea or two. Before we do let’s let Tom introduce himself a bit more…

I was raised in rural Kent before moving to London and working in the film industry, starting as a tea boy (runner) on sets and then in the camera department. I made short films that led to directing. Alongside writing, the visual arts – painting and photography in particular – have long been my great loves as well as the sea and windsurfing especially. I wrote my first novel, The Spider Truces, between 2003 and 2009 and it was published in 2010. My second, Men Like Air is published September 22^nd 2016.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

Definitely not much of a system. I keep all the novels I read unless I really didn’t get anything from it, which is rare. I squeeze them in to any available slot on the shelf. I am not a hoarder of anything other than books. Glancing across my shelves reminds me of when I read each book, what they meant to me, how much I loved them. I can’t always remember what happened in them but I can remember characters and the emotional impact. I have never kept a diary but my bookshelves play something like that role for me.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

My art, photography, design, architecture and gardening books are in a different room to fiction. I do cull non-fiction books and research material but not the rest, not really. Within each section there is no organisation other than separating novels, poetry and plays, no alphabetical ordering, and many wasted hours looking for books. I’m not proud of myself.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I don’t know. But the first one I can remember buying is the silver cover edition of The Catcher In The Rye from Sevenoaks Bookshop in 1981. That was the edition our teacher, Mr Pullen, gave us to read and it was that and Hemingway’s Indian Camp the previous year that first got me reading other than at gunpoint. I wanted the same edition, the same silver cover. It was the first time I recall wanting to own and keep a book. I still have it, yes.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

My copy of “The Concise Guide to Life for Men with no Charisma” aside there’s nothing there that I would feel the need to hide. Some of the reference/research books can get a little peculiar (Araki springs to mind) and be placed on the higher shelves.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

The Specialist by Charles Sale. My late great Dad gave it to me when I had my first short film commissioned and broadcast by the BBC in 1993, a couple of years before he died. He wrote a message to me inside. After that, my copies of William Maxwell’s So Long See You Tomorrow are the ones I love the most. From a fire, I would save my surf boards – sorry.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I was aware more of my eldest brother’s books as he is eight years older than me and was, unlike me, bookish. Hardy and Houseman were what I was aware of him loving and I remember feeling “grown up” when I read The Mayor of Casterbridge and I loved all the Hardy I read as a teenager. I have some Hardy and Houseman on my shelves, yes. The same brother took me to see the Polanski movie of Tess and that depressed the shit out of me enough to revert to sport for the next twenty years until my mid-thirties.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Absolutely. If I have loved a book I want my own copy of it.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I bought three together. David Mitchell’s number9dream, brilliant, but you don’t need me to tell you that; David Baddiel’s The Death of Eli Gold, which I am really looking forward to next; and Bunker Spreckels, Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence, which I consumed in one enjoyable sitting.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

1971 – Never A Dull Moment by David Hepworth and Marshall Law: A Law Unto Himself by Sally Smith. Also, the novel or memoir that Timothy Keith Craig hasn’t yet written. He’s one of my closest friends, a brother to me these past 6 years, a fine writer and one of the funniest, brightest of people.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I have no idea. I’d like them to think I was a stand up guy but I imagine they’d only think I’ve got too many books about Andrew Wyeth.

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A huge thanks to Tom for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves.. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Tom’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #83 – Rebecca Smith

Hello and welcome back to the series Other People’s Bookshelves. If you haven’t seen them before these are a series where a guest takes over the blog and feeds into the book lust we all feel by sharing their shelves. This week we are off to Scotland, where we are being put up by the lovely, lovely Rebecca Smith who has kindly invited us to have a gander at her bookshelves. Before we do Rebecca has kindly put on stunning Scottish spread of utter joy and delight. So now we are refreshed and before we rampage through her shelves Rebecca is just going to introduce herself a bit more…

I’m Rebecca and I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Cumbria amongst forests and mountains, snakes and stags. I now live in Central Scotland with my 6 year old son and my partner. One day I will build my own house surrounded by trees and grass. With those huge bookcases that spans walls and reach the ceiling. I went to University in Stirling (English, Film and Media). I lived and studied in Hungary for a semester (thank you Erasmus). And I produced live radio for nearly 10 years, almost purely living off adrenaline. I write short stories and currently work for BBC Radio Drama part time. Last year I applied for the https://womentoringproject.co.uk/ and was lucky enough to be selected by the amazing Kirsty Logan. She is mentoring me which has given me a huge boost in confidence with regards to my writing.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I keep all of the books I buy. But I usually end up lending a book to someone which is how I manage to keep space for more! I’ve lost a few books throughout the years and it’s only recently I’ve wanted (and seen the benefit of) re-reading of them. I’ll be buying again them when the house is built…

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I don’t really cull my books. I’m very reluctant too anyway. And yes, it’s alphabetical: although the bottom shelf tends to be reference or books that don’t really fit anywhere else (1975 Jackie annual – it’s mums, I can’t part with it. It teaches you how to read your palm!) The books in the most accessible bookcase by the window have the short stories, poetry and a wee bit of drama. The books that pile up on top of the other books tend to be the ones I use most, taking them out to re-read passages when I’m writing. All the middle section are my University books, (good ole Norton Anthologies) and my partners building books – he works for a house builder (it’s not the only reason I’m with him.) In the kitchen there is the ‘travel section’, the cook books and the lit magazines. And of course in my sons room is his rather messy book case. I’ve read him a story every night since he was born. We’re reading a book about a police cat at the moment. His favourite (and will always be mine) is Fantastic Mr Fox.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

Probably a series of books called The Mystery Club by Fiona Kelly. Oh I loved those books. I used to walk around the estate (my dad was the forester on a small country estate in the Lake District: it was idyllic) walking amidst the gardens, the scattered cottages, the lodge houses, the farm with a pen and notebook marking down anything that I thought could be suspicious. (That cottage has been empty for 3 weeks now, where is Mr Brown, have those curtains been moved…?!) I even wrote to Fiona Kelly and I was over the moon when she replied. I don’t have the books at my house but they could be in my parents cellar. Or it could have been a Judy Blume book. I loved every word that woman wrote.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

Not really no, but there are books that are either my Dads or my ex-husbands which are not my style. I’m not that overly taken with crime novels.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

Hmm, obviously the first thing I’d save is my son, and cat. (I assume my boyfriend could escape himself.) There is a very special book I bought in Krakow, Shaking A Leg, The Collected Writings of Angela Carter. I’m very careful with this (I would never lend this out) and I like to go back every now and then to read parts. It has her short stories and her essays collated in it. It looks beautiful, it is beautiful. I’d probably save that.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I was lucky enough to grow up in a house with over-flowing bookshelves. I used to read whatever my parents had lying around. Dad liked the classics and the adventures, mum, the family sagas. When I was 16 I read and loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and studied it for my A level English project. That felt adult, especially the war scenes which have stayed with throughout the years. I also bought from my local, very small and now closed down, book shop, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. I adored this book. It felt different, very adult, but very’ me’ at the same time. Unfortunately I lent it to someone and I never saw it again. That’s on my to-buy list.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Yes, I borrow a lot out of the library as I can’t afford to buy all the books I want. I recently read Anne Enright’s, The Green Road from the library and I will buy that when I can as I loved nearly every sentence.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Helen Sedgwick’s, The Comet Seekers. I bought it at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Just finished reading it. I loved it. It was like chatting to old friends.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

So so many; my wish list on Wordery is huge. The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride, The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, This Must be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell, The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss, The Assassin’s Cloak by Irene Taylor (diary extracts – I really like the idea of this), Thin Air by Michelle Paver,  Bark by Lorrie Moore (another one I borrowed from the library and need to buy!)

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

No idea, but when people come round I like to find out what they like to read then I suggest something. It’s always a nice feeling when they come back and have liked it.

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And a huge thanks to Rebecca (my favourite name for obvious reaons) for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves.. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Rebecca’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #82 – Robert Davies

Hello and welcome back to the series Other People’s Bookshelves. If you haven’t seen them before these are a series where a guest takes over the blog and feeds into the book lust we all feel by sharing their shelves. This week we are off to lovely Wales, the land of cwtchs and witches, to join Robert Davies and have a nosey through hisshelves. Before we do Robert has kindly put on a welsh spread of utter delight for us all and is going to introduce himself before we rampage through his bookshelves…

I was born and grew up in South Wales and was encouraged by my parents at a young age to read as much as possible. I studied English Literature at Aberystwyth University which, despite being an excellent degree programme, shattered my interest in reading for pleasure for a long time. I now work in a large South Wales university, and I make use of the local public and academic libraries as much as possible. I’d love to eventually move into the library department, hopefully one day gaining the qualifications necessary to become a librarian. Outside of work I’ve spent time writing, recording and releasing music, and I like to use my free time visiting interesting places like local castles, ruins, forests and museums with my girlfriend. I write reviews of what I’ve been reading on my blog, Book Mongrel.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I try to keep everything on my shelves but I’m reaching the storage limit in my small house. I’ve just started to transfer a few shelves’ worth of “read” books over to another bookcase but I think I’ll hit the space limit on that pretty soon too. I’m not concerned with what’s on display – even books I didn’t enjoy or never got round to reading stay on the shelves until I decide to sell or donate them. At the moment the shelves are in disarray (just how I like it), with piles of books put on the shelves in front of the other books which are stacked upright. I quite like how the contents of the shelf are always shifting – I’m either pulling out a new book to read or going back to an older reference book to check some details, so the main bookshelf never stays the same for long.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

My shelves are mostly organised by “read” and “to be read”, but individual shelves aren’t organised in any meaningful way other that trying to keep similar-sized books together. Generally I’ll try to keep genres together, but it’s not something I’ll painstakingly work on as it never seems to look any neater. I have a lot of graphic novels, comics, coffee table books and textbooks that are generally too large to just stuff in amongst a bunch of paperbacks, so I try to make them fit in where I can. I’m also enjoying the recent Penguin 80 Little Black Classics series, and they are pocked-sized, so it’s sometimes difficult to make the best use of the limited space. I haven’t culled my bookshelf yet but I’m starting to identify which books should really be passed on – I’m planning to donate them to charity shops or give them to friends but I don’t think that will actually free up that much space anyway.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I had to think hard about the answer to this question as my parents were always very encouraging with my reading and would usually buy me something from bookshops when I was a kid, even before I was old enough to have a job of my own. I’d also make frequent use of the local library and read as much as possible, so it’s hard to pin down the first book I actually bought for myself. I think it was either a Penguin edition of George Orwell’s Complete Novels, or Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, bought when I was around fourteen or fifteen. I still have both of these on my shelves. They’re nice, well-read, thumbed-through copies, and I think 1984 is full of notes from my English GCSE classes.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I don’t really buy into the idea of guilty pleasures any more – I don’t think I would be embarrassed by anything on my bookshelf. I’m interested in grisly stuff and horror/crime/occult books so I have a few items that probably don’t look that great, and may put a few people off based on the subject matter, but they’re part of my collection, and they belong on the bookshelf.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

My grandmother gave me a very old copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination when I was younger, which I still have to this day. I’m guessing it belonged to her mother or another relative but I don’t have that much information I’m afraid. I found some publication information recently – it’s a Collins Illustrated edition from around 1920. There are some lovely illustrations that accompany the stories, but the pages are very delicate so I try not to handle it too much. I now have a cheap edition of The Complete Poe that I can use for day-to day reading.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

My parents weren’t big readers so I never really saw many books around the family home. My mother used to read a lot of celebrity biographes and what I believe are called “tragic life stories”, things like “A Boy Called It” and the like. The only book I ever remember my father reading was a London gangster autobiography called The Guv’nor. I’m just not interested in that kind of stuff, so I always tried to seek out books that I was interested in myself. The first real “grown up” book I ever remember taking from the library was Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo. I took it home and tried my best to read it but obviously for a fourteen year old it was way over my head. I liked the cover design and the sense of extreme mystery within the book, and the fact that there was all this knowledge within the pages that my young mind just couldn’t decipher at the time. I still haven’t read it! I also remember my grandmother having a hardback collection of Great Ghost Stories by various writers that I never seemed old enough to read at the time. I now have this book on my shelf.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

It depends on the book. I generally only borrow books that I’ve read about beforehand, so it’s likely that I’ll enjoy the book anyway. In the last few years, I’ve read some great books that I’ve borrowed from libraries and friends, and then gone ahead and gotten my own copy. Some of the books available in the university’s academic libraries are very rare or out of print, so it’ll give me a chance to do some detective work to find a decent, relatively inexpensive copy in good condition if I want to buy it for myself. I try to make use of the libraries as much as possible but I certaintly do have a bit of a buying addiction!

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The last books were 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (I found the sequel, 2010, in a local charity shop so now I’d like to read the whole series), Under the Skin by Michel Faber (based on the film and a friend’s recommendation) and The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (another recommendation from a friend).

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Yes, quite a few! The ones I’d like to get ahold of next are: Rub Out The Words, the second volume of letters by William S. Burroughs, The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O’ Connor and You Can’t Win by Jack Black. I usually have a pretty substantial list of books to be read/bought on my phone or in my notebook.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I’m not sure what they would think… my friends and I have very similar tastes but I guess someone who didn’t know me might think that I have a wide range of interests, ranging from classic literary fiction to very low pulp fare. They may notice that I have a big selection of non-fiction, and not very much modern fiction. I don’t think I currently have any major prize winners on my shelves, so this might be something they notice. I think anyone would definitely realise that I’m a horror fan!

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And a huge thanks to Robert for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves.. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Robert’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves # 81 – Susan Davis

With Savidge Reads being back up in action it seems only right that the Other People’s Bookshelves series returns almost instantly. If you haven’t seen them before these are a series where a guest takes over the blog and feeds into the book lust we all feel by sharing their shelves. This week we are off to Shropshire, just down the road from my mum, to join author Susan Davis and have a nosey through her shelves. Before we do Susan has kindly put on a lovely afternoon tea for us all and is going to introduce herself before we rampage through her bookshelves…

I write in a converted coal shed in Shropshire which sometimes feels like an anchorite’s cell. If I stand on a chair I can just glimpse a slice of Wenlock Edge through the tiny window. Back in the nineties and noughties I published Y/A fiction along with short stories under my real name, Susan Davis. I now write psychological thrillers under the pseudonym Sarah Vincent, most recent of which is ‘The Testament of Vida Tremayne.’ When I’m not writing my own stuff, I work as an editor and mentor for ‘The Writers’ Workshop.’ I don’t have any cats, just a terrier who likes to chase them.

 

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

They need to be special to earn a permanent spot these days. ‘Special’ would mean: Virago classics by old favourites like Elizabeth Taylor, or Barbara Comyns. Also contemporary fiction that gets better with every re-read like Sarah Water’s ‘The Little Stranger’ or ‘Gillespie and I’ by Jane Harris. All books written by friends and acquaintances. You can’t very well give them away, unless you’ve fallen out! Books with gorgeous covers – can’t resist the Scarlett Thomas books, although for me ‘The End of Mr.Y’ was the one that really lived up to its cover. Non-fiction and reference books which feed into my fiction, art books with lots of lovely pictures – a refreshing break from words. Otherwise books that have that read-and-let-go quality, are likely to be shipped off to charity shops when I’ve finished or passed around friends.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Mostly by category. There are three main bookshelves in the house and a few smaller ones. The study bookshelves go something like this: top shelf for poetry and writer biogs which I’m addicted to. When I’ve got a dose of tortured artiste syndrome, I dip into Sylvia Plath’s journals for reassurance. A few Viragos up there also.  Second shelf: esoteric tomes and all the fiction I’ve published over the years, including anthologised stories. Also the teen trilogy ‘The Henry Game’ – their bright sweetie coloured covers do jump out a bit. Third shelf down: Art books, more weirdo esoteric stuff, reference, and so on.

Upstairs bookcase is all fiction, novels written by friends, some children’s books and short story collections. Living-Room book shelves are a mess. Which is odd when you consider that they are the only shelves on public display. This is because I share them with my husband – so the top shelf harness-making, birdie and crafty books are all his. Honest. No categories on my second shelf down. They just loll about together in a drunken fashion. I’m keeping a space for my daughter’s overflow of books as she’s moving house shortly.

I had a major book cull around four years ago in a mad de-cluttering moment. We were moving to a tiny cottage by the sea, or so we thought, so I had to be ruthless. Whole shelves were cleared, and I invited friends to come and take their pick from the boxes. They gaily carried off some gems, which I now regret chucking out. Sadly, our house sale fell through, leaving me with huge gaps to fill. I now cull regularly in case we decide to move again. Trouble is, every time I take books to the charity shop, I come back with another bag full.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

It’s a toss-up between ‘Teach Yourself Astrology’ which I think I bought with money for my 11^th birthday, or it could have been ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in hardback when I was 12, having just been introduced to ‘The Hobbit’ at school. I think my son must’ve nabbed that one when he left home because it’s not on the shelves now. Here I should perhaps explain that I grew up in the fifties, in a working class household where buying books was considered a dreadful extravagance. Why buy them when you’d only read once and could go to the library and read for free? My parents were avid readers, bless them, so the Saturday trip to the library was the highlight of my week.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

No, nothing to hide!  If I had I’d be more likely to have them on Kindle. I’d probably have squirmed a bit about the esoteric books at one time, books about ley lines and fairies and so on. Would people think me strange? Nowadays, I know they do, so I don’t care!

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

That has to be a dusty black hardback, a first edition of Ursula Bloom’s ‘Wanting to Write’, published in 1958. It was published well before the Creative Writing Industry took off, and is full of gems like: I have always found that the ordinary pen which requires dipping in the inkpot is far more helpful than the fountain pen or ballpoint which today is so much to the fore. When I stumbled upon it in a junk shop in the early seventies, I was a young mum bashing out novels on a Remington typewriter in my kitchen, and feeling almost ashamed of my compulsion to write. Bloom made me feel less alone. I do have a special shelf for these early ‘writing’ books which I collect, (which I haven’t included in the pics.) Which books would I save in a fire? I wouldn’t. I’d be more likely to try and save old photo albums. Books can always be replaced.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and is it on your shelves now?

I discovered copies of ‘Fanny Hill’ and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ in my dad’s dressing table drawer once, but they seemed dull at the time. When I searched again as an adolescent they had magically disappeared. I suppose the first ‘grown-up’ book must have been ‘Little Women’ which was one of the few books my mum actually owned and was much prized on her shelf. Is that grown-up enough? Followed closely by the usual suspects, classics like ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ which I loved.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Yes, occasionally. I’m more likely to do that with non-fiction books, often about rural life or travel, like Robert Mcfarlane’s wonderful ‘The Old Ways’ which I originally borrowed, then treated myself to. The same thing happened with ‘The Morville Hours’ by Katherine Swift, a beautiful book which is of local interest so good to dip into.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Peter Ackroyd’s ‘Albion’ ‘the origins of the English Imagination.’ Brand new and a bargain find in an Oxfam shop. Looks stunning on the shelf but I haven’t got around to reading yet.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Hundreds. I’m looking for a copy of George Borrow’s ‘Wild Wales’ which I first read on my Kindle. However I’d rather have the real thing to take on trips to Wales with me. Oh, and there’s a beautiful new edition of Elizabeth’s Taylor’s Complete Short Stories. I plan to treat myself to that one soon.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

What would I like them to think? Hah, what an interesting person, she clearly possesses exquisite taste. Seriously, they’d probably be left scratching their heads. Who knows?

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And a huge thanks to Susan for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, apologies again for the delay but it was so worth the wait. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Susan’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #80 – Mary Doria Russell

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week is a very special week as we are joined by Mary Doria Russell who you will all probably know as the writer of the cult novel The Sparrow. I had the pleasure of reading The Sparrow for part of a special panel at Books On The Nightstand (I miss it so) Booktopia in Petoskey last year (which I also miss terribly) where myself and Thomas (of the Readers) joined Ann and Michael to talk about all our favourite books Ann’s being The Sparrow. You can here that conversation here. Anyway this week we are joining Mary, who I owe a small apology as she sent me this last year but I wanted her to have a special post, like this 80^th, but the volunteers trickled so it has taken some time. Better late than never huh? So let us all join Mary and have a chat with her about the books she loves, has read and then have a nose through her shelves…

I grew up near Chicago. Dad: ex-Marine, Mom: ex-Navy nurse. Me: a shocking vocabulary. Didn’t know it was bad language until Kindergarten. BA in cultural anthro, MA in social anthro, Ph.D. In biological anthro; post-doc in craniofacial biomechanics, all of which prepared me for high-class unemployment in the mid-1980s. Fortunately, I’d married Don Russell in 1970. His income as a software engineer allowed me to stay home, raise our kid, and write stories about Jesuits in Space, all while living under a roof and eating regularly. Full-time novelist since 1991: The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, Dreamers of the Day, Doc, and Epitaph.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

I’ve become pretty ruthless about culling. Each of my novels has required an extensive library of research material, but not all the background books actually contribute anything memorable to their novel. I keep the ones that provided something factual that a reader might inquire about. The others get donated or sold.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I don’t color-code books – I arrange them categorically – but I do pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics of the bookcases: mixing in photos, art, vases, small mementos, etc. I’ll fuss for hours to make things look pretty on the shelves, but the initial organization is rational. The research libraries for published novels go into bookcases in a guestroom; the sheer mass of books makes that room feel hushed and comforting. They’re grouped by the novel they contributed to.

The working library is in my office. Those are books that have a direct bearing on the novel in progress.

The office also has a sort of trophy bookcase that holds all my published work, including translations, audio books, etc. When I despair of making the current story work, I gaze at the earlier books and think, “Don’t panic. You’ve done this before.”

We recently commissioned new cabinetry to flank my husband’s ginromous TV with shelves for books that have a personal significance for me: those by authors who are friends of mine; books I’ve blurbed or reviewed in the Washington Post; inscribed copies of books sent to me by their authors.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

There were the usual children’s stories – I was partial to tales about horses. None of those remain. The first significant book I bought for myself was acquired with my babysitting money in 1963: a used copy of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. That is now surrounded by a collection of TEL biographies that became part of the research library for Dreamers of the Day, in which Lawrence is a character along with Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

Nope! Not ashamed of anything I read!

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I don’t have any precious books. I’d grab our elderly dachshund and run! If we had time to evacuate before a natural disaster (not that there are many of those in Ohio), I’d fill the car with artwork that can’t be replaced. Books are more like tools to me: I am more pragmatic than sentimental about them.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and is it on your shelves now?

I read Mom’s copy of Gone with the Wind when I was a young teenager. And I did reread that while writing Doc, which is about the frontier gambler Doc Holliday. He and Margaret Mitchell were cousins and many of the episodes in GWTW are echoes of his childhood in Georgia. GWTW is a really brave book – Mitchell was willing to hang the whole novel on a thoroughly dislikeable central character and didn’t redeem Scarlett O’Hara or make her more likeable 833 pages later. [I just went to the Doc library in the guestroom to check on the page count!] There’s a lot I admire in the book, though it’s not fashionable today.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I mostly borrow recreational reading from the public library. I buy books for the working library – a tax-deductible expense!

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Rachel Holmes’ biography of Karl Marx’s daughter: Rachel Marx. My next novel is about the early days of the American labor movement, so I’m boning up on Marx; his daughter is WAY more interesting than Das Kapital.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

YES! I want Karen Joy Fowler’s next book! Karen is a friend and she has been talking about doing a novel about Edwin Booth, the brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. I nagged her for years to finish what she called “my chimp book,” and I was right about that one! We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Pen/Faulkner Award.So this interview is just one more way to nag her to write the Booth book!

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

“My God, is there anything this woman isn’t interested in?!” Mathematics. Not mathematics. But pretty much everything else.

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And a huge thanks to Mary for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, apologies again for the delay but it was so worth the wait. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance, I am catching up with all the latest volunteers. In the meantime… what do you think of Mary’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #79 – Sarah Shaffi

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the perfectly natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in London where we join the lovely Sarah Shaffi, who works for the book news bible that is The Bookseller. There is, as always with these lovely bookish folks whose houses and shelves we invade, quite the spread on so let’s all grab a drink and a snack and get to know Sarah and her bookshelves better.

I’m a journalist by trade, currently working at The Bookseller magazine as online editor, which feeds my book habit. I’ve had a blog for a few years now, mainly focused on books, but also includes a little bit of whatever takes my fancy!

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

My system basically consists of trying to keep my bookshelves at home and at work under control. This means being able to stack everything bar maybe half a dozen or so books on my shelves. I don’t always succeed, but I am thankfully past the days when my floor was taken up by multiple large tote bags full of books. I generally keep books I only really, really, really love now. And even then, something else can supplant that if needs be.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

My bookshelves at home are double stacked horizontally, and then those rows have books lying on top of them. The top shelf of my bookcase has some of my university textbooks on it, and some non-book stuff (*gasp*), and at the front is where I keep my graphic novels. The rest of my shelves are a mix of fiction and non-fiction – the back row is ordered alphabetically by author surname. The front rows, which are the ones you can see, used to be for books I hadn’t read but intended to, but given that I have so many books they’re a complete mix now, and I’m sad to say there’s no order – read, unread, fiction, non-fiction, new, old, proofs, final copies. I’ve learned how to live with them.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I really don’t remember. I do remember buying an abridged copy of a Dickens’ novel, possibly Great Expectations, on a school trip when I was about eight. And I’m sure I bought something from one of those Scholastic fairs that used to come to school, but I really don’t remember what.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I don’t believe in book guilt – read what you want, enjoy what you want, don’t be ashamed of it.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I love my copy of Anita Desai’s The Peacock Garden, which was the first book I ever read with a non-white protagonist and which I got for completing a summer reading challenge with my local library. I also adore my battered copy of The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton, which was a birthday present. And I have a gorgeous limited edition proof of Ryan Gattiss’ All Involved, which is signed and which I would love to rescue because it definitely can’t be replaced.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I spent many, many hours at the library, but the grown up books I remember are all from my dad’s bookshelves. I read my way through all his Jeffrey Archer novels when I was about 12, and the book I always wanted to read that he had was Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. I’ve never got round to it – life is too short to spend reading classics you think you should have read.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I’ll only buy a book I’ve already read and enjoyed if I really, really love it. I just don’t have the room otherwise, and I grew up borrowing books from the library, not owning them, so I’m in the habit of not buying everything I read. But I do have a tendency to buy books I love to give as presents to other people in lieu of buying them for myself.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The last book I bought was The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie, for my Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction reading, but I’m constantly bringing books home from work, so I’m not sure that was the last one I added to my bookshelves.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

When I was little my dad bought me a box set of the Beatrix Potter books, and we gave them away once I’d grown out of them. Now I really regret that, I’d love to have those on my shelves, not least because you never grow out of great books!

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I like to think they’d think I’m a person who just loves books and words.

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Huge thanks to Sarah for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Sarah’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

A Tour Of My Bookshelves, Not Other Peoples…

Normally on a Saturday we have a nosey around other peoples bookshelves, in an occasional series featuring – erm – other peoples bookshelves. Well, whilst I have one which I am saving for next weekend when I will be away celebrating my little sisters 18th, I am running low on volunteers. So firstly I am doing a call out to ask you to please join in sharing your bookshelves with us all, it isn’t scary; I don’t really come to your house and you can edit it as you see fit and I leave it untouched. You don’t have to be an author or a blogger just someone who has bookshelves and fancies chatting about them. Just email savidgereads@gmail.com and say you are up for it and I will send you all the bumf/stuff.

Secondly, whilst I have done Other Peoples Bookshelves myself before, I thought I would give you an actual tour of my shelves. So grab a cuppa/glass of something and settle down while I (quite literally) take you round my house. You will even get to see Granny Savidge Reads famous hedgehog collection I inherited. So I will hand over to that.

I hope you are all having great weekends and reading some corking books. Let me know what you are reading and what you are up to… And get emailing.

PS I know I haven’t done the book draw for the IBW2016 winners, I will be soon it is on my never ending list of to do’s.  

Other People’s Bookshelves #78 – Christina Philippou

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the perfectly natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in in the south coast of the UK, in a place not far from Southsea where I used to live, to join Christina Philippou, whose blog you can find here, and have a nosey through her bookshelves. There is, as always with these lovely folks, quite the spread on so let’s all grab a cuppa/glass of something and a nibble of something before settling down to get to know Christina and her bookshelves better, and then I am off for a wander around my old haunts. But first, over to Christina…

I’m an ex-forensic accountant, now university lecturer, and am also a book blogger and fiction author. When not working, reading, or writing, I can normally be found engaging in sport or undertaking some form of nature appreciation with my family. I have three passports to go with my three children, but I’m not a spy.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

Books to be read, work-related books, and REALLY good books go onto our shelves, although that’s two people’s (rather different) taste in books, so there’re a few that I wouldn’t keep (despite having read) that remain on our shelves. Every year we do a ‘clear-out’ and donate ‘cast-offs’ to our local library.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Shelves are organised by genre: crime, romantic/ feel-good, campus lit, literary fiction, classics, Greek literature, travel literature (local authors from countries we have travelled to), other fiction, sport, popular science, history, general non-fiction… The shelves that don’t get culled are the travel guides ones – they just grow and have now taken over most of the top of the large bookshelf.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

‘On The Road’ by Jack Kerouac – money well spent and yes, still on my bookshelf!

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I used to be more eclectic in my reading tastes but I now read most things (embarrassing or not) and, as I file all my books by category, my guilty pleasures are on show for all our visitors to see…

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

There’s two: My mum’s copy of ‘The Book of Nonsense’, which is a collection of poems, stories and rhymes for children, which I absolutely adored and was inspired by as a child, and my copy of Στα ψέματα παίζαμε (loosely translating as ‘We played at Lies’), an exquisitely written novel tracing backwards from the present the exploits of five school friends, in snapshots, every World Cup, and is not only unavailable in English, but is also now out of print in Greek as well.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

Brideshead Revisited always held a certain fascination for me, and was influential in shaping a lot of my reading when I was younger (as well as some of my writing). A different copy now resides on my shelves.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Definitely buy keepers. I am lucky enough to get quite a few review e-copies, and I also download a lot of books, but anything that hits that special 5* space gets bought in paper copy.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

Death in Profile by Guy Fraser-Sampson and Night Games by Anna Krien.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

I realised that my copy of Half Bad by Sally Green has gone missing, so that will need to be replaced.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Diverse!

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Huge thanks to Christina for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Christina’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #77 – Liliane Ruyters

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the perfectly natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in Utrecht, which is very exciting to join Liliane Ruyters and have a nosey through her bookshelves. There is, as always with these lovely folks, quite the spread on so let’s all grab a cuppa/glass of something and a nibble of something before settling down to get to know Liliane and her bookshelves better.

My name is Liliane, some people may know me from my blog BooksandLiliane. In it I write about the books I read, I also include pictures I take based on some of those novels. I studied English Literature at the University of Utrecht (I am Dutch by the way) and eventually ended up being a manager at a shared service centre. We provide the area of Dordrecht with advice on how to communicate properly with the people living there. A demanding job that, since I live in Utrecht myself, also comes with a total of 8 hours in commuting. These 8 hours I use to read the books I write about. Though my formal education and my current job do not follow logically I find it suits me well. I love reading, I love writing about books, I also love thinking about how to improve communications and help my team doing so. I’ve got the best of both worlds.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

In the pre-ereader days I banished those books I did not really like to the bookshelves in my guest room. The one in my living room contains mostly favourites; the one in my bedroom mostly childhood books and romantic novels. I used not to throw away books. When confronted with bookshelves that were filled to the brim I did bring books to the second hand bookshop.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I never even tried to organize my books alphabetically or on author. I was too aware of the fact that this would mean constantly changing the order of books on my shelves. My living room bookshelves go up to 3 meters, I need stairs to change anything. I did try to arrange books by origin: British, North-American, Down Under, African or Asian. When those shelves started filling up I ended putting books wherever there was room. With one exception: I once wrote my endpaper on modern versions of the Arthurian Matter. 4 Meters in my shelves are reserved for Arthurian novels. I am prepared to move other books to keep these together.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

The first book I ever bought was The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It definitely has a place amongst the other Arthurian novels.  It has been used for my studies and the pages are filled with underlining and comments, it has become so fragile I just leave it where it is.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

No guilty pleasures. I am prepared to defend the funny and romantic novels by the likes of Marian Keyes and Kathy Fforde. I love them and they have a special place in my bedroom bookcase. I find that I very often do not need to defend them, they are the pleasure of a lot of readers.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I would try and save my cat first, two books next: The Once and Future King and The World According to Garp. The first because it helped me in my decision to study English literature and made me an Arthurian matter addict. The second because I bought it on a whim for its cover. I started reading it after I just finished reading Middlemarch (which I really did not like at all, sorry!) and kept on reading until I finished it. I loved the way Irving advocated a prejudice free world by incorporating many not exactly everyday characters. It being signed by Irving himself makes my copy even more special.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

My mother being keen on classics, I suppose that I took Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre out of her shelves first. I bought them when I started studying and they also are still on my shelves. I would not dream of removing them.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I used to buy the books I wanted. Reading a lot of books on my e-reader has made me less attached to their physical form. Nowadays I buy e-books (I find that I am too lazy to search for free copies and do feel that the author deserves his or her money) or borrow them at the library.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The last book I added to my bookshelves was The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, to be placed on the Arthurian shelves naturally. The last one I bought was My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (I am trying to read the entire Bailey’s Prize shortlist).

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

No, if I want the book I’ll get it.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Someone perusing my shelves will definitely notice that the majority of my books is written in English. A minority is in Spanish or Dutch. Though most of my friends tend to read a lot, neither of them have the amount of books I have. People visiting my house for the first time usually comment on the number of books first, on the fact that most novels are literary next. In my blog I restrict myself to those novels that are considered literary, my bookshelves are a reflection of this policy. I do read the occasional detective or romance (the latest Galbraith has been kept waiting for the Whitsunday weekend), I find that I get a lot of joy reading novels that challenge or tempt me. Fortunately a lot of those are still being written.

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Huge thanks to Liliane for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Liliane’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #76 – Christoph Fischer

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in Wales to join Christoph Fischer wonderful shelves. Christoph, whose blog you can head to here, has put quite the spread on for us with something for everyone, so let’s all grab a cuppa/glass of something and a nibble of something and join him in his wonderful lounge meets library before we have a nose through those tempting bookshelves and learn more about him.

I’m a German expat living in West Wales with my partner and three Labradoodles. I was born by the German/ Austrian border, studied in Hamburg and then came to the UK 23 years ago where I lived in London, Brighton and Bath. I’m a trained librarian and worked for the British Film Institute, local Libraries, Museums and for an airline. Three years ago I’ve taken voluntary redundancy and started writing and publishing my own books. I still spend far too much time reading. (Simon says this is not possible!)

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

If I have a hard copy I always want to keep it – unless it was REALLY bad (and even then throwing or giving it away feels wrong. The librarian in me cannot let go of them). I have lost a lot of literary treasures because of my move from Germany to the UK and I deeply regret that. Now I’m over-compensating, I guess. Sadly, a lot of my books are e-books now, and I don’t develop the same kind of bond with those. I never get to see the cover or hold it, and once I’ve read it, the file sinks to the bottom of the electronic ocean, never to be seen again.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

Yes. Once a German librarian, always a German librarian… (My partner likes me to Monica from Friends). I’ve organised them into General Fiction (alphabetical), Crime Fiction, Scandinavian Fiction, Travel Literature and Non-Fiction. I also have a corner for my own books.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I think my first book was “Five Go to Mystery Moor” by Enid Blyton. As I said earlier, I don’t have any of my childhood books. Briefly after I moved to the UK my father passed away and I didn’t have the means to ship everything over, so they went to a charity shop.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I have a stack of ‘adult’ themed gay comics from Germany. They are humorous, not ‘erotic’ but I wouldn’t want my father-in-law to find them. I’ve positioned them on a shelf that he can’t reach.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I have a small selection of signed books from author events at Toppings Booksellers in Bath; most notably from Lionel Shriver, Simon Mawer, Armistead Maupin and Christos Tsiolkas. Your question is a good reminder for me to put them all together in a place so I can save them in case of a fire.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

“The Good Soldier Švejk” by Jaroslav Hašek. I had seen a fringe play that my father directed when I was ten, but I was told that I wasn’t old enough to fully understand it. I loved the funny illustration by a Czech artist on the cover and read it anyway, but did find the book too difficult at the time. I’ve rediscovered it a few years back during research for one of my own novels and loved it. My father was born in Czechoslovakia and the book reminded me much of him and his sense of humour.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I probably would have to buy it if I borrowed a good book, but I usually buy all of my books in the first place. In the indie author community and the blogo-sphere I come across so many interesting books, and then there are the book fairs and trips to book shops. I’m also reviewing books for the Historical Novel Society, so really, I’m drowning in books….

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I’ve organised the Llandeilo Book Fair and came back with 15 books from it: Most looking forward to “Motherlove” by Thorne Moore, “The Beaufort Bride” by Judith Arnopp and “The Man Who Never Was” by Olga Ninez Miret. More traditional late additions are: Haruki Murakami’s “Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki”, Simon Mawer’s “Tightrope” and my fourth copy of “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts (I keep giving it away to friends).

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

“The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas – I keep giving copies of that away, too, to visitors and friends. I really would like to read it again…

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I’d like them to think that I’m open minded to all types of books and am neither a snob nor fixated on one genre.

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Huge thanks to Christoph for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Christoph’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #75 – Deborah Fischer-Brown

Hello and welcome, after a five month sabbatical – come on guys get sending me your shelves, to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in the company of Deborah Fischer-Brown who blogs over at BookBarmy (great name) and her wonderful shelves. Deborah has put quite the spread on for us with something for everyone, so let’s all grab a cuppa/glass of something and a nibble of something and join her on her deck and get to know her before we have a nose through her bookshelves and learn more about her. 

My name is Deborah.  I live with my very tolerant husband, in a book-cluttered San Francisco row house that boasts a view of the Pacific ocean. I’ve been surrounded by books all my life – grew up in a family of book lovers, inherited by grandfather’s extensive library and have created my own reading nook in our little San Francisco home.   Once again – I’m happily surrounded by books. I blog over at BookBarmy.com. There is nothing better on a foggy San Francisco morning, than browsing my bookshelves of books I haven’t read yet – just to find the perfect book for my morning tea and reading. I’m retired from a career in high tech marketing.  We are able to travel extensively because we do international home exchanges.  I occasionally do some consulting – mainly helping non-profits hone and clarify their communications.  I’m also a volunteer with the San Francisco public library – see, more books. I tend a garden of roses, but also have herb and vegetable beds.  I love to entertain and cook for friends and loved ones – I cherish long meals and conversations that go on to the late night.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc? 

I will never let go of my extensive library of classics which I inherited from my grandfather — most all are Heritage Press editions. And, while they are not worth much in today’s market they are precious to me.   I grew up with these books, I was allowed to read anything from his shelves and have fond memories of being curled up in our parlor pouring through Treasure Island or Arabian Nights.  Today, with my own books, I keep favorites with optimistic plans to re-read then, but otherwise, most books get donated or passed on to family or friends.  I have never been able to uphold a “one in-one out” discipline – there are just too many books I want to read and bring home to shelve, pile or stash somewhere in the many bookcases throughout the house.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever? 

Although I have great plans of one day organizing my many bookshelves, as yet, there’s no real system.  I am saved by the fact that I have a sort of “rain man” ability to locate almost any book on my bookshelves — even those I haven’t read yet.  I just remember where I put them without any trouble. That being said, I do have a shelf of what I call my “anglophile, English country manor” book collection. I also enjoy travel literature and have all those books on one shelf and a pretty impressive collection of cook books. 

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now? 

Growing up in multi-generational family of book lovers and rooms of books, I never had to buy a book.  I was given books at every occasion and had a house full of books at my whim.  I do remember using my allowance money one summer to buy trashy romance comics to share with a neighborhood girlfriend.  When I got married and moved to our first apartment, my first book purchase at a used book store was Christopher Morely’s classics Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I am slightly bemused by my weakness for British women’s literature from authors such as Marcia Willett, Joanna Trollope, Rosamund Pilcher, Erica James.  There’s nothing better than a book wherein all problems can be solved over a cup of tea by the Aga.  I’m just a sucker for those veddy British reads – an Anglophile at heart.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I would have to choose my grandfather’s two volume copy of The Jungle Books, which he read to me and my younger siblings for many years – even after I could read I would happily pile into the chair to listen.  The books are richly illustrated and looking at them brings happy memories.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now? 

I don’t know if they were my dad’s or my grandfathers, but for a while, there was a collection of Ian Fleming’s James Bond paperback thrillers.  One summer, I secreted them, one by one, up to our backyard treehouse, reading them for the excitement and slightly suggestive sex scenes.  Then one day they were gone. I’ve since tried to read them and they no longer hold any interest for me. A passing pubescent obsession.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I volunteer at the Friends of the San Francisco Library bookstores, where we sell donated books to benefit the city’s library programs.  Volunteers get 30% off books, so eventually, yes I purchase most every book I want to read – and many I had no idea I wanted read.   I am also a strong supporter (much to my husband’s dismay) of  independent book stores here in the city and when we travel.  You know that famous Eramus quote:  “When I get a little money I buy books, and if  I have any left, I buy food and clothes” – That’s me all over.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I just brought home A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. Not a book I would normally choose, but so many book lovers I respect and admire have recommended it. 

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

In a mindless fit of clearing out, I donated my childhood set of all four vintage Mary Poppins books. I would probably never have re-read them, but I sometimes regret getting rid of them. I’ve toyed with the idea of replacing them. But then again, maybe they are happy and loved in some child’s bookcase.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

An eclectic reader who favors the classics, historical fiction, memoirs, travel literature, epistolary novels, anything British, and the classics. A bit of a “Pollyanna” with no taste for horror, true crime, or anything wildly violent – the real world has enough of that already.

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Huge thanks to Deborah for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Deborah’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #74 – Joanna Walsh

Hello and welcome, after a small sabbatical, to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in the company of author Joanna Walsh and her wonderful shelves. Joanna has put quite the spread on for us with something for everyone, so let’s all grab a glass and a nibble of something and have a nose through her bookshelves and learn more about her.

Joanna Walsh is the author of Hotel, Vertigo (UK publication 2016), Grow a Pair and Fractals. She writes for The Guardian, The New Statesman, and The National. She is Fiction Editor at 3:AM Magazine, and runs the capping @read_women, which the New York Times described as a “rallying cry for equal treatment for women writers.”

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc? 

I have a holding system. As I review, I am sent quite a few books which go into the ‘to be read immediately’ pile, the ‘to be read later pile’, the ‘to be given away pile’ and any number of intermediate piles. I try not to put things on the shelves that I haven’t read, because it means I might forget to read them.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I just made myself a new set of shelves so I can have more of my books together. I made them out of scaffolding planks and bricks and I’m not really a pro at this so the whole thing is rather unstable although the planks are bracketed to the wall at a central point. I hope they don’t fall down and kill me someday. I alphabetise – although it’s not very aesthetically pleasing. I found I had to, because I do a lot of work that involves referring to other works. I discovered that I have an affinity for authors at the beginning of the alphabet, especially authors beginning with B*, which is lucky because I often sit right under that section. Art books have their own set of shelves downstairs for reasons of size (‘B’s/’C’s  there too! Bourgeois, Carrington, Calle, Blake again…), and then journals/anthologies etc, which are not by one writer, & also things I’ve contributed to/written just because I couldn’t fit all these things on my main set of shelves.

*Beckett, Benjamin, Claire-Louise Bennet, Brooke-Rose, Breton, Blake, Baudriallard, Barthleme, Barthes, Buzzati, Bacon, Baudelaire, Bernhard, Bowles (Jane), Nicholson Baker, Flann O’Brien (should he be under O? Probably, but he obeys no laws of reason).

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now? 

I used libraries as a child. I think I bought the Penguin complete Sherlock Holmes when I was about 10. It went mouldy when there was a leak in my wall a few years ago so I had to throw it out along with some other books.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

The only pile I’m embarrassed about is the pile of books written by acquaintances that I might never get around to reading. (To anyone reading this who’s given me their book: no, OF COURSE I don’t mean YOURS.)

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I’m not really attached to books as objects. Books should be reproducible, that’s the point of them isn’t it? It’s the writing that counts. On the other hand I do love well-designed books (I’ve designed several book covers). There’s no reason the design of electronic books shouldn’t be excellent too. All the same,  I don’t like to read e-books, but that’s because because it’s very difficult to weigh how far you are through them, and more or less impossible to take spontaneous notes: and you can’t bend them, or leave them splayed spine-up or fold them to mark a page, or read them in the bath. I do often read pdfs/epubs on my laptop when reviewing.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now? 

I was pretty excited when I read Lord of the Rings when I was 9. I thought it was a grown-up book because it had no pictures. I got about 1/3 of the way through before I realised it had a page with some kind of runic diagram or something, and I felt cheated. I did finish it, though. I was very concerned that I should be able to finish such a long book.

My dad was an English and drama teacher, so I read a lot of Beckett as a teenager, especially the plays. I was also really interested by The Pilgrim’s Progress because his edition had an intriguing cover. I did read that. I always anticipated that books long-deferred because they were ‘for grown-ups’ must hold some kind of secret that was so big and important that I couldn’t possibly even conceive of it. But I think there’s too much emphasis on childhood reading, that it’s sometimes sentimentalised, perhaps because for some people who don’t, or hardly ever, read books as adults, this is when they read most. I’m constantly coming across books that are THE BOOK for a while, and have at every period of my life.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I usually put it on a wish list and don’t buy it unless I need to reference it. Having it on a list must make me feel I if I do possess it in some way. Sometimes I lend out a book, then I don’t want to ask for it back for one reason, or another. I’m more likely to buy it then.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

After they’ve been through the holding pattern thing, maybe Lucia Berlin’s collected short stories, which I may not reread very soon, and Lispector’s, which I definitely will. Apart from when I’m reviewing, I’m pathologically incapable of finishing a book of short stories. I have no idea why.

I just bought Bolaño’s 2666, and of course that’s gone on the tbr pile, not a shelf, but it’s size is a bit daunting so I’m not sure how quickly it will get to the shelves…

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

There are books I wish were available – like Leonora Carrington’s short stories, and Down Below, her memoir of incarceration in a Spanish mental asylum. I read this book in a university library. I am sad that such a common-or-garden-looking paperback is available only there, or via a second-hand book dealer for quite unreasonable sums.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

Pseudy (post)modernist.

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A huge thanks to Joanna for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Joanna’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that she mentions?

Other People’s Bookshelves #73 – Dan Coxon

Hello and welcome to the latest Other People’s Bookshelves, a series of posts set to feed into the natural filthy book lust we all feel and give you a fix through other people’s books and shelves. This week we are in the company of author and editor Dan Coxon. He’s put on a might fine spread of nibbles and drinks for us, so do grab a few and settle down on those comfy chairs as we get to know Dan better and have a right old rifle through his bookshelves….

I’m an author, editor and father, not necessarily in that order. My travel memoir Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand was published four years ago, and was used as background for the ITV documentary River Deep, Mountain High last year. I also write short fiction, with stories in Gutter, Neon, The Lonely Crowd, The Portland Review, Flash, and many more; forthcoming in Unthology and Popshot. Non-fiction all over the place, from Salon to The Scottish Cricketer. From 2013-2015 I edited Litro magazine, and I’m in the process of editing an anthology of short stories about fatherhood, entitled Being Dad. We’re currently taking pre-sales and raising funds on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dan-coxon/being-dad-short-stories-about-fatherhood). Please check it out – we have stories from Toby Litt, Dan Rhodes, Courttia Newland, Nicholas Royle and Nikesh Shukla, amongst others. It’s going to be wonderful.

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

My natural instinct is to keep everything, good or bad. I guess I’m a hoarder, at least when it comes to the written word. In reality I’ve shed a few books over the years. Generally speaking, every book I read moves onto the shelves shortly afterwards. But some only take up temporary residence, while others are there for good. Signed copies (by anyone) and a few favoured authors (Iain Banks, Will Self, Ian McEwan, William Burroughs, Doug Coupland) will always find a space on my shelves, no matter what. Plus anything by someone I actually know in real life, or anything that blows me away. Basically, I’m always looking for a good excuse to hang onto books.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

For almost ten years I worked in the book trade, first as a bookseller, then as a bookshop manager. During that time my shelves were immaculate – arranged according to genre, then by author. It was basically like having a little bookstore in my house. Now that I have two kids, I have less space, and less time. I still have a ‘to read’ shelf, where all my latest purchases and the books I’d like to revisit reside. And a ‘friends’ shelf, stacked with books by authors I know (this is still growing – I may need two shelves at some point soon). Beyond that, I’m ashamed to say that most of my books are arranged according to size. Non-fiction is still separate, but it’s mostly a case of fitting in as many tomes as I possibly can. One day, when I have the time and the space, I’d love to return to a proper system again. I’d love to have all my short fiction in one place.

As for culling, my wife and I went travelling for a year at one point (part of which formed the basis for Ka Mate), and I cut a lot of books from the collection. The remainder were stored in friends’ attics for twelve months, so I had to be ruthless. The same happened when we moved to Seattle for a few years, and on the way back again. We’d fill boxes with the titles we were happy to part with, then we’d invite friends round to take their pick. If they were going to a good home it wasn’t such a tearful parting. I like to think that my shelves are still out there, just residing in my friends’ collections.

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What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I’ll come clean – I had to check on this one. I always had so many books around when I was a kid that it’s hard to remember specifics. It turns out that my Mum can’t remember either. It was possibly one of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, although I thought I received those for Christmas. Given my childhood reading habits, it’s quite likely that it was one of the Doctor Who novelisations. I still have the Narnia books (nice editions, that have been passed down through my half-siblings and back to me), but I only have a handful of Classic Who novels in modern versions, nothing like the books I had back then.

What I do remember is that I had a rolling list of books I wanted, written on the back of a Waterstone’s bookmark (these were one-sided at the time, with a maroon front). At first it was just five or six titles that I’d heard of and wanted to read, but within a few years it had expanded to multiple bookmarks, with titles and authors packed in tiny handwriting on the back. I’d give these to my parents at every birthday, without telling them that most of the books were rarities or out of print. I was always interested in reading out-of-the-way books, the ones that everyone had forgotten about. These days there’s probably an app that will hunt them all down for you. But when I was a kid I loved having my never-ending wish list.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

To be honest, anything I was truly embarrassed by was thrown out during the culling. I do have a shelf of my juvenilia – Michael Moorcock’s Elric books, those early Doctor Who novelisations, Alan Garner’s The Owl Service – mostly the same editions that I had growing up. These sit directly behind my TV, in plain sight, so I wouldn’t exactly call them hidden. I’m actually rather proud of them. If people don’t ‘get’ them, then they probably don’t ‘get’ me either. I’ve been living with those books for so long that they’ve become part of who I am. Having said that, my wife does have a few Patricia Cornwells that I’ve stowed away, out of sight. Her later novels are just awful.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

For my 21^st birthday my Dad bought me a 1^st edition boxed set of Lord of the Rings, so that would be the easy choice. Quite apart from the sentimental attachment, it’s also worth more than any other books that I own, by a rather large margin! Beyond that, there’s a copy of The Swiss Family Robinson that my dad stole from a local library about fifty years ago. I’ve been dragging that around for so long that I couldn’t bear to part with it now. The same goes for the copy of Moby-Dick that I pilfered from our school supplies when I was 17. (They’ll probably read this now and demand it back. It’s not even a particularly nice copy, but we spent an entire term wandering the playing fields reading excerpts from it, imagining that we were the Dead Poets’ Society. If nothing else, it’s an irreplaceable reminder of what a pretentious tosser I was in my teens.)

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I think it was the Selected Stories of H.G. Wells. My dad is a rabid science fiction reader, and our shelves were always dominated by his books. I seem to remember an illustrated edition of this book, although I may be making that up. I read these stories fairly early, and loved the sense of imagination and adventure that came with them. I was lucky that my parents encouraged my reading habit, and didn’t mind me dipping into their shelves on occasion. I haven’t read them in a while, but there’s a copy still buried on one of my shelves somewhere. ‘The Time-Machine’ probably looms larger in my subconscious than any other single story, and I’ve taken a few shots at writing a time travel story over the years. Maybe it also explains why I’m still an unrepentant Doctor Who fan.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I borrow quite a lot of books – I firmly believe in the library system, and if we don’t use it, we may lose it. Whenever I read something that I like, which I’ve borrowed, I have to ask myself whether I’m likely to read it again. If I will, then I’ll buy a copy (especially if I want to make notes on it, I wouldn’t deface library property!). In most cases, though, upon honest reflection, I decide that my shelves probably can’t take the extra weight.

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I’ve been cutting back on book purchases this year. I have such a backlog of wonderful reading that I want to dedicate some time to catching up with the pile. I have made a couple of purchases in the last month or two, though. Most recent was at the Green Man Festival, in Wales. I’d read most of the book I’d taken with me on the train, and it rained solidly for much of Saturday and Sunday, so I was tent-bound with nothing to do. Luckily there was a well-stocked book stall, where I bought J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (irresistible, given the weather) and Christopher Priest’s The Affirmation. I’m happy to say that both were excellent.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

There are always books that I want to own, but I’ve gradually come to realise that I’ll never have the time to read them all. Currently, as I type this, I’m craving Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, as well as Jonathan Evison’s latest, This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!. But I will resist, for now at least.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I think they’d probably be a little confused. My shelves are quite a mess at the moment. But I like to think that they’d pause for a moment and find an unsuspected gem or two hidden in the stacks. Reading is always at its most exciting when it serves up unexpected pleasures, and there are some genuine treasures in among the chaos. Or maybe they’d just see a Doctor Who-loving geek with a love of impenetrably pretentious modern literature – either is fine by me.

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A huge thanks to Dan for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, you can check out his short story collection kickstarter here. If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Dan’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?