Free Books!*

(*Meaning the Books Themselves Have Been Freed From captivity)

This has been a big week in my life. I finally got all of my books put up on bookshelves, arranged in the order I like, in a little basement room that will serve as my personal library/sometimes office/occasional Zen music space that will double as a spare bedroom for guests.

I am stoked about this, having my books up on the shelves, to my exact obsessive-compulsive specifications, all lined up in formation, ready to serve at my command. Stoked, I am! Stoked, am I!

You may think to yourself: “Hmmmm. He put books on bookshelves? How nice. What’s the big f**king deal?”

Yeah well, think what you will. See if I care. Do I roll my eyes when you obsess over something I find supersonically inane? Ok, yes – I probably do. Mais ce n’est pas le sujet! The point is:

I have my books on bookshelves, arranged to my exact specifications, across various categories and subcategories. Here is a chart breaking things down:

Category	Subcategory	Child of Subcategory
Genre	Fiction	Literary, popular, comic
	Non-fiction	Sports, culture, history, politics, entertainment
Size	Small paperback
	Large paperback
Cover type	Hard cover
	Paperback

Did I mention the alphabetical part? Because the books are also arranged alphabetically (mostly), by the author’s last name. Well, there is one exception: Rather than author names, I used the name of the publishing company (Hard Case Crime), because those books all have the same vintage design and are just begging to be stacked side by side.

When I have multiple books by one author, I arrange them chronologically by publication date (mostly). The author with the most books on my shelves is Ed McBain, best known for his excellent, decades-long series of 87^th Precinct crime novels. I have 21 of his books. Wikipedia tells me there are 55 novels in the series. Still many more to read!

And put on bookshelves!

*****

All of this work took time – many, many days of taking books out of boxes, arranging them, and then stacking them on shelves. I don’t have enough bookshelves to hold all my books, so I double-stacked them on some of the shelves. This required using cardboard sports card boxes and other materials as risers so the books in the rear of the shelf are higher than the books in the front.

There are about 450 books on the shelves you see in the photo accompanying this blog (I counted). I have a couple hundred other books on other bookcases in the house, including classics and literary works that line the bookshelves of our dining room. That’s a lot of books for one human, and each one holds a special place in my heart (mostly).

I do not just toss books up on the shelves willy-nilly like some kind of drunk anarchist. The thought of doing that offends me to the point of violence….

And anyway, these books were in serious need of tender loving care. Some of them I have had for more than 40 years. I bought them for college lit courses for about $2 each and carted them around to nearly 30 different homes in a dozen cities and seven states over four-plus decades.

Most were stored away in the USA for five-plus years while we lived in London. We moved back to the States from London last year, and got everything out of storage – including the books. They are freed from captivity and ready to take their proper place back in society.

*****

Brief interlude: The house in America where we stored our books was in Charlotte, N.C., and we rented it out while we were living in London. We hired a management company to take care of all the rental stuff. We asked the management company to move books from the living room bookcase to locked storage in the attic so the tenants wouldn’t swipe them (the tenants swiped other stuff, but never mind….).

The management company apparently tossed the books in large trash bags and tossed the trash bags into the storage closet. They didn’t bother to make sure the books were stored properly, in a way that would prevent damage, so some of the books ended up all bent and mangled, because our management company is filled with shit-brained fuckwads who manage to be both stupid and greedy at the same time.

But I kept most of the mangled books, anyway, and have tried to nurse them back to decent health by packing them tightly in the new bookshelves in our new home.

Now, back to the main feature…

*****

There are few things I love more than books. If you don’t include the natural world – humans, animals, plants, soil, mountains, waterways, the sky and wind and sun and moon – then I probably love books more than anything. Or, maybe food. Nah, books. Nah, food. Anyway, it’s those two plus music, tennis and cycling.

I love reading books. I like looking at them. I can sit in my chair and just stare at them on the shelves. I enjoy holding them, flipping their pages, stacking them on shelves, scanning their spines. I have written a couple of books myself (buy ’em here and here!). Sometimes I even loved writing books, while other times I hated it with an intensity I cannot adequately describe. But I do like the fact that I wrote them.

I like arranging books, and take great pains to do so, as you can see. It’s nice to have them back together again, in their proper place. Some I will read again, in full. Others I’ll just grab and read a few pages, just for the enjoyment of the written word.

I also bought a moderately priced Electrohome Kingston 7-in-1 combo record player/CD player/radio/Bluetooth unit dressed up in a vintage 40s style that I put in the room with the books. This means I can listen to some tunes while enjoying a little alone time with the books. It’s my own little version of paradise, and damn, I’m glad to have it again.