Today I am joining Julia at Hooked On Houses for the very first time. The event is called Hooked On Fridays. Please visit Julie and see a bunch of things other bloggers just love with a passion. It's really interesting stuff!! Today I am showing off some of my bookshelves, which are just about in every room of my wee little house. Exercise caution though; this was a last minute post and I did not tidy up or stage one tiny bit! So, if you see cobwebs or dust or something I stuck on the shelf because I had no other place to put it, I will attest to the fact that organization is not one of my strong points and I am inherently lazy.Above are the shelves in my kitchen that hold all of my cookbooks. You may note that the shelves are sagging and it is not the fault of my carpenter. I recently cleared out about half of the books along with scraps from newspapers, magazines and hastily written down recipes from friends or bloggers. As I was going about this arduous task, I came across cookbooks that I had never even opened!! And I am a little ashamed to admit why. I have a bad habit of judging a book by it's cover! You see, there are so many cookbooks in the discount bins at bookstores and I go through them and think "Wow, this looks like a great book! And look at the beautiful cover!" I get them home only to find that one book involves cooking entirely with tofu, or one involves purchasing ingredients from a select and obscure Armenian food market. Looking at my shelves today I saw Jewish Holiday Feasts (I'm Catholic). The Black Pot (I don't own a lick of cast iron cookery). The Lazy Baker. (They got the lazy part right, but I abhor baking).
So I donated a bunch of books and brought a carton up to the Lakehouse even though we are pretty much "Throw some meat on the grill" people.
But truth be told, I really love to read cookbooks, especially one's where the author talks about how and when they made the dish (only to find that the guests at her dinner party generally shied away from beef tongue), or a little story about how they got the recipe from a medicine man in the mountains of Bali. Really interesting stuff. So my secrets are out.
Moving along, this is the shelf in the master bedroom. And these books belong to the Master of the house. If they have dust on them it is because they almost as old as him. I can't argue the point that he wants to hang on to them (I still have my first cookbook: The Clueless Baker...). He maintains that these are reference books. Some just sound so interesting, it brings me to my knees: Larrey: Surgeon to Napoleon's Imperial Guard. Larrey? Larrey who? And then this one, a real conversation starter: The Autobiography of Gordon Saltonstall Hubbard. Hmmm... maybe he knows Larrey. And some of us may be interested in this book: How Walmart is Destroying America. Gulp. This book might just destroy my love for one of my favorite haunts.So there you have The Husbands books. I have shuffled them around the house so this shelf does not look so messy. A bedroom is supposed to be relaxing and soothing and I don't like to see the jacket cover with Larrey hovering over French soldiers with swords in their chests.
I keep most of my book in the den. It is a mix of self help books and Chick Lit. Maybe I could use a little self analysis to figure out why a married woman of my age wants to read about twenty~something girls romping around New York City with the very best of friends and a couple of cads thrown in for fun. I also keep a lot of note cards that have sat untouched since the advent of email and if you are of a queasy nature, don't look at the black container on the upper right side of the top shelf. It holds, er...my last dog, if you will.
This shelf holds a lot of my favorite children's books that I can't part with and a lot of my journals. You might be appalled at the fact that I leave something so private out on these shelves. Truth be told, no one here is interested in me. I could place one of these journals right on top of The Husbands morning newspaper and he would just swat it away and continue to search for the sports page. So no need to worry about anyone reading how much weight I have gained or how I fantasize explicitly about Harrison Ford. Nope, my secrets are safe!
And lastly in the den, a little row of books I don't want, but need to fill in this shelf. I do like the painting below. I bought it from an antique store. It has some French script I can't read, of course, and it shows women in tight corsets dancing with men in wigs wearing ruffled shirts. I was positive The Husband would somehow spot Napoleon (or even Larrey, if he wasn't tied up caring for the wounded soldiers), so I hastily hung it here before he could snatch it for his office.
Here we have a shelf in the family room. It is filled with books that I have read and would be willing to loan out because I didn't like them very much. The rest of my books are treasures, reference if you will. When family members come over and start to peruse my shelves for a book to borrow, I gently nudge them over here...
And finally we have the Boy's Shelf. These books are all about sports. I have been threatened severely to never throw away or so much as touch these books (and you will note I haven't due to the haphazard way they are arranged). Again; reference. Why can't a man just read a big old fictional novel? The guys in my house equate reading a book from beginning to end as a blow to their manhood. Men like facts. They like to read facts (as in the scores on the sports page). Have you ever noticed that when we argue with our husbands, they have that great capability of sticking to the facts, while we women just ramble on and on? I personally think they miss a lot of good stuff not reading like we do, but then again, I could use some help in the rambling department. Note to self: Look for self help book along the lines of Stop Rambling and Start Making Sense: A Woman's Guide to Understanding and Using Facts in Everyday Life.I wish you all a great day!!
xoxo
Jane
