Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

WOOT! WOOT! Just finished my 2ed bookcase for my library room...only 1 more to go!!! Tonight I'll be shelving books, hopefuly I'll have the other done in a week or so...then put up a few nick-nacks, there's 2 statues to buy (one of Wonder Woman and another of the Enterprise NCC 1701, no bloody A, B, C, or D) and find a place for my Wonder Woman poster...then I'm ready for "collection inspection" should any of the fen come to visit this old Hermit...I'm excited, this is the first time I've had a "real" library with proper bookshelves (not fancy ones mind you, but not press-board junk either)...I'm pretty proud of what I've put together, I'd love to take pics and share them here...anyone know how to post photos there?

Come to think of it, anyone else want to share pics of their own personal library space?

*posts a picture of a kindle*

I saw a USB drive with "250 Classic Books" on it as a gift the other day. Thumb drives are cheap & tiny. Anyone could make one using downloads from Gutenberg &/or Archive.org. Might be a good gift.

Here are 2 photos of my messy bedroom & some of its bookshelves.
https://goo.gl/photos/a13znsBpxBC2V4qPA
https://goo.gl/photos/3HUkS1fjro4DCXr56

There's another bookshelf on the other side of the room. Just multiply this out by 5 more rooms & it's pretty much our house.
;)

Would love a big library physical library but the comfort of a digital one trumps all other aspects of it. My library will always be digital.

The Trantor Library (and The Shire Reading Chair.)



(Since I got my Kindle in 2011 I haven't added any books beyond those I'd already bought in dead tree editions.)

I'm dying to see if Spooky1947 can figure out how to post a picture. :)

Seems we have similar tastes, G33z3r.
;)

Jim wrote: "Seems we have similar tastes, G33z3r. ;)"

yeah, I noticed we both surrounded our bedroom windows with SF&F books. Of course, if we were really serious, the shelves would run in front of the window, too. :)

Carlos wrote: "Would love a big library physical library but the comfort of a digital one trumps all other aspects of it. My library will always be digital."

This. Also, I get my paper books at the library so my personal stash is only a few books at a time. I do usually have a few books from a bookstore too, but I sell those back when I'm done anyway. I never really have more than five or so paper books at a time.

I love looking at all the spines sometimes. I'll wake up from nap & just visit with old friends. It's not as pleasant looking through a directory of files. In the living room, I have a wall full of mostly nonfiction & hardbacks. Scattered through the house are other shelves with collections of books - all by a certain author or a specific genre/subject.

I'd really like to get all of my woodworking, wood, tool, & tree books in one case, but they're scattered throughout several including out in the shop. I have more notes, plans, & printouts in among them, too. Messy.

:D

I hate to say it, but I put a shelf in front of my library room's window...ten I put a blackout curtin behind the shelf, so the evil sunlight won't fade the spines of my books...hopefuly the last bookcase will be done in a couple of weeks....right now I'm busy shelving the new case...I couldn't belive I had like 16 or so feet of Stephen King!! I decided to take the radical move of seperateing my anthologies...I love short stories, always buying anthologies, so I made a (big) space for them...the single-author anthologies go with the novels by that author...after I finish getting those up, I'll start shelving my SF history, litcrit, and fan works...that should leave the last case for the for "other" catagories...science, paranormal, history, bios, ect. I still haven't decided the best place for my statues, and all my wall decortaions are up except for the Wonder Woman poster and the Silver Surfer metal sign...I'm considering building a shelf in the closet for my my boxes of comics...I've already got all the office supplies on their own shelf for when the muse strikes and I decied to write the next Skylark or maybe the greatest fannish screed ever...lol...but right now the room is a unholy mess, stacks of books everywhere, overflowing into my bedroom...this is more of a project than I thought it would be....

I like the floor-toceling shelves you guys have...being I live in a apt. I wasn't able to build that sort...I had to go with free-standing shelves...also, my budget wouldn't allow me to hire someone who actualy knew what they were doing, so I had to go with a simple shelf design, something my untrained hands wouldn't screw up (to bad)...you will find the plans I used here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap...

That page is a little old...you won't get buy with doing it for any $60...mine cost more like $150 a case, that's 8 ft long with 6 shelves...this design is easy to work with, very forgiving and easy to mod to your needs...anyone wanting to build one of these, message me and I'll give you some tips...the hardest part is cutting the all-thread rod to size, but if you know a good machine shop you might get them to cut them for you

Jim, the thumb drive is a good idea...I understand Gutenberg has a DVD of their SF you can get for little or nothing, already burned....I have a 128 GB thumb drive for my SF pulps, I need to get another 128 drive to hold them all

Love the bookshelves. I'd stand and browse.

Our joint library here is constantly being topped up but amazingly we've each missed out on some books over the years. Like, we're only now reading Ender's Game. While my husband is delighted to find a few unread Haldemans on Amazon. The Kindle I have has over 400 books on it but they are not all SF.

The physical library is in every room but the bathroom, including the attic - many in the attic - but I try to weed out as I go. If I am sure we won't read a book again, it gets released into the wild for other readers to find and enjoy, via a secondhand shop or charity shop.

Careful of the attic as storage unless it's climate controlled. The temperature extremes ruin the bindings. Damp in the basement is bad, too.

I'm sure you are right about the attic. The intention is to bring the books down when we have a room ready for them. There's rather a lot of painting involved, since we've had insulation and plastering done on walls and ceiling.

I need to get on with it this summer, but I'm also a writer so getting the new book down has come first. I'm into the edits now, which are not nearly so much fun, which means there is a good chance of the paint tins being opened. I've got this lovely vision of bookcases lining the walls to spur me on. Yep, I should really start.

Some shots of one of my bookshelves I happened to have:

Speared and pinned - I bought that half a year ago :)

The Katana bookends take a lot of space in my shelf but look absolutely fabulous.

You two have got all of us turning our heads to one side, then the other!
Amazing bookends!

neat bookend!!!

I have to get a bunch of bookends for my shelves, don't think I'll go for fancy ones tho, likely pick some up at wally-world of office depot...bookends are expensive these days!!! and I need sooo many of them....

I have the new bookcase stocked now...something of a pain to get right too...I'm trying to leave a bit of space for expanding...I do need to complete several anthology series, and there are several authors I still have want lists on....

Clare, be careful of attic storage...no matter how clean your house is, a mouse or other critter can set up house-keeping in the attic, and they will be more than happy to chew into boxes of books...I use to be part-owner in a comic shop, we constantly saw people bring in what would have been high-dollar comic books, except for the fact some attic-dwelling critter ate part of them....

now I have to start cutting all-thread rod for the next bookcase...unfortunaly I don't know any local machine shops that would take such a small job, so I'm going to have to do it by hand...problem is, I have trigger finger acting up in my right hand, so it'll be a slow process...only have to cut like 30 parts....then toss out those crappy partical board shelves, after that it's just a trip to the Home Depot, drill some wood, and put it all together...not long now!!!

Spread some moth balls around to keep mice away. We have to store Xmas ornaments & such out in the hay barn, so I put a couple in each container. The mice never bother them. It keeps them from nesting in drawers in the shop & barn, too. I also put them around young plants in the spring to keep the deer & rabbits from eating them. They just put more nitrogen in the soil as they break down.

You are giving me the horrors.

Opening a box of books to find mouse nests, bookworms, & brittle spines that flake apart is pretty horrible.

I once found a bona fide bookworm in an old book which I'd bought from a collector's sale. That book went straight out.

I once bought a used book on Amazon, when I got it in the mail, I found it had mold on it...straight out to the dumpster it went...NEVER let mold get a foothold in your home if you love books.....

Jim, will moth balls keep squriles away too? In this part of the US the can get into attics as well...also, my dad built a really nice shed, problem is, it's got squriles and chipmunks in the roof now....he's tried everything to get rid of them, nothing is working (that has nothing to do with the topic, but....)

Even though I have two ereaders, I love, love, love physical books. My shelves need some work, some books are lying around the house and some are new and still homeless, but I'm proud of them. :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YJ...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YJ...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6YJ...

Spooky1947 wrote: "Jim, will moth balls keep squriles away too? In this part of the US the can get into attics as well...also, my dad built a really nice shed, problem is, it's got squriles and chipmunks in the roof ..."

I've been told moth balls didn't work on rats in Florida where they can get really heavy, but as far as I know, they're pretty good against any mammal with a sense of smell - including many people if you put down too many. I put them next to the doors in my shop & just a few in some other strategic places. I haven't had any mice in the shop. There isn't really any food for them, but a lot of piles of sawdust filled with crickets & such. IOW, give it a try & see, but I'd put them near where they enter & next to nesting spots.

Jim, the main problem is my Dad built that nice shed near a big Pecan tree....

PriPri, paper books are the best, no doubt, but I do love my kindle...the kindle is a bit hard on the eyes tho...still I have a fat library on it...I just wish Amazon whould let us put a expanstion card in em for more storage.....

The garbage man comes tomorrow, so tonight I start dragging out those saggy old partical board shelves...have to break em down and drag em out to the dumpster...I was able to give one away, but no one wanted the others, so out they go to make room for good shelves....

PriPri, you keep really orderly shelves! Must be great knowing you can put your hand on a particular book instantly.

Spooky, you need either a squirrel predator or to start farming squirrels, which some people consider edible. Try a mock big owl.

ain't on my land...it's my Dad's...now if it was me, I'd keep some cats (I like cats, I don't have any cause I got a mean landlord)...but my Dad don't like cats, so he's got squirrels...

Clare, Orderly shelves are a MUST...I have my own system (a bit complex, but it works)...if ya can't find your books, what's the good of having them???

I have an order to my shelves, but none of my family seems to get it. I don't know why. Generally books are in alphabetical order by the author's last name, but that changes if I can't get them all in one shelf space or shelf, so Heinlein & Howard are next to each other before Hambly. Not a big deal. Zelazny & Wagner aren't in the main bookshelves in my room, but share their own bookshelf with some other nice collectible books. I can put my hands on a book quickly, so the system works!
;)

I stack by genre and by non-fiction. When I've read a book it often has to go up to the attic to make room on the shelf.

I order my books by genre and general theme. PSI stories, Mecha, Military SF, and so on. That way I can find something to read according to what I feel in the mood for, rather than needing to decide on an author right away.

I sort my shelves by genre, and alphabetical order within the genre...my SF section is large enough I have to split em up...novels and single-author anthologies in one section, other sf anthologies in their own section, books about SF in their own section....the section that drives me nuts is the over-sized books shelf...it's a mix of several genres

I once read about a fan who came up with a dewey decimal system for SF...printed it up as a fanzine, released it into the world where it became part of fannish lore (I've heard of it, never seen it)...from what I understand, he had all the various sub-genres in their own space....anyone go this far?

Some authors write in more than one subgenre so I would generally prefer to keep the author's works together.

Clare wrote: "Some authors write in more than one subgenre so I would generally prefer to keep the author's works together."

I try, but some just don't fit well. I keep Asimov's fiction together, but keep his nonfiction in separate shelf with others. John Jakes is another. Most of his fantasies are on the main fiction shelves, but I keep his Bicentennial series in with my other history books. I know they're fictional, but they taught me more history than most nonfiction books.

Yeah, I could use a dewey decimal system, I have enough (as in, way too many) books but basically, I just have mine blocked off in type. Fiction which includes my science fiction, plays, books about theatre, poetry, books about poetry, film, history, autobiography, black history, pocket paperbacks, comics and graphic novels, research materials and then, on a separate shelf for like, favorite speculative fiction, where I keep my King and Bradbury and Ellison and anthologies. Finally, I have another shelf that is my spec fic pocket paperbacks.

It's pretty unwieldy, but the upside is that one of my favorite "jobs" that I do at least once a year is reorganizing my books while listening to a book! Ahhh...

That's seven different bookshelves. Yikes.

We all want to come and help you next time that you sort them out... provided we get to sort the SF shelves particularly.

Clare wrote: "We all want to come and help you next time that you sort them out... provided we get to sort the SF shelves particularly."

It's funny, I first started putting my spec fic with the rest of my books out of like, defensiveness for the genre(s) or something.

I have my stuff in catagories:

SF (noveks & single author anthologies)
SF (anthologies)
SF (my books about SF and SF crit)
SF (pulps and digests)
SF (Star Trek)
SF (Doctor Who, Perry Rhodan)
Stephen King
Westerns (I read them sometimes too)
Science
Bios
Paranormal
History
Quotatains
Oddball facts and books of lists
Books on Books (mundane)
Other
Notebooks (I haven't written in ALL of them tho...)
Comics (dived into Marvel, DC, and everyone else)
Oversize Books

I have two shoe-boxes full of DVDs of SF pulp scans stolen from the internet (one's for my use, one's a back-up)

Doctor said yesterday not to worry about the trigger finger, so I can start cutting the all-thread rod tonight for the 3ed bookcase...hopefuly the last case for awhile, I only got space for 1 more after that, in the bedroom....