Bookshelf Love.

Bookshelves tell the story of a life. When you have genetic tendencies towards hoarding this fact is even more apparent. There is that enormous black bookcase that had to be sawn in half to fit through the door to your room. It now houses the categories Plays; Classics; Poetry; Short Stories; and Art. But also there are all those Tamora Pierce books that informed your early teens, a generous sprinkling of Bryce Courteny and the Harry Potter series. These elevated titles look smugly over to other teenage fiction relegated to the other side of the room. Here lurks three volumes from the Twilight series, accumulated from the discarded pile at work, amongst the better written and better loved. Their little case is balanced on another that houses much used University Readers that you continually use and reference as primary sources. The children’s fiction and picture books you still love are on the second biggest bookcase. There too, is non-fiction and reference but you don’t have much time for the real. The adult contemporary fiction sits in the spot that you first see when you walk into the room. It is overflowing above and below and is stacked in weird ways to accommodate. People walk into this room and know you are a reader. You walk into this room and know who you are.