Bookshelf Porn: The Closet Edition (Part I)

Ever noticed how some of the oddest things end up being stored in a closet?  I store quite a few books there, some of which might surprise readers to see that I own/have read.  Some of these books I've had since I was a child almost 30 years ago.  Some are more recent.  But here are some (but unfortunately, not all, as several stacks are in inaccessible places and I may have to drag them back out into the light of day to photo-catalog them as I'm slowly doing with my other books) of the hundreds of books stored in a walk-in closet of mine (bookcases there to be photographed later, once I do my biannual cleaning there).

From Python to Mann to Hugo to Hemingway, there's a lot here.  Oh, and a hanger bar as well.

My original LotR books, purchased for me in 1987.  You'll see better quality ones in a later picture.  Oh, and Sylvia Plath is in here as well.  Across Five Aprils had a good TV dramatization for that Civil War historical novel.  And yes, I've read quite a few Jane Austen novels over the years.  Shocked?

A few of the history textbooks I've kept from my late teens and early 20s.  And Foucault!

Is it a "dangerous liaison" to have Dylan, Richard Wright, and Robert Heinlein in the same photo?  Maybe Friday's people will devour the loser(s)?

To see the rest of the pictures, be sure to click on the permalink, as I'm going to put a break in here now for those who are viewing this via RSS feeds.

As you might have guessed, some of these stacks go from floor to (nearly) ceiling.  Dumas fils is here, along with Aristophanes!  Oh, and Morgan Llywelyn's earlier novels and some of her latter historical ones aren't that bad of a read.  Not extremely deep, but I did enjoy reading them in my late teens.  Thoreau might protest that, though.

More reads from my youth.  Arthur Koestler's book is outstanding.  Same goes for Eberhard Jäckel's book, as I used elements of his methodological approaches in this book in constructing my undergraduate thesis.

Robert Jordan novels surrounded by books on Hitler and a work by Nietzsche.  No, this was not planned, but it sure is amusing.  But not as strange as the celebrated The Return of Martin Guerre, which is still one of my all-time favorite microhistories.

A few books in a rafter-like corner.  Bradbury, Blish, Lewis, and a few others.  And yes, I've read Sandra Cisneros, so pfttt! to those who want to mock me for that!

Just a few more of the books I kept from my days researching late Weimar/early Nazi German cultural/religious history.  Most of the good ones were not affordable then (nor now), alas, so I never got to own those.

Stephen King and J.K. Rowling - together at last!

Here's the first part of my Tolkien collection.  Note the Spanish-language editions.

Here's Tolkien, Part II:  Copy of Unfinished Tales is laying on top of another shelf at the moment.

Tolkien, Part III, followed by Nietzsche, a novel about Geli Raubel, The Song of Roland, and a biography on Bob Dylan.

This makeshift shelf is about eight feet above the floor, so any shakiness in camera placement is due to its height.  Some poetry of Allen Ginsberg, along with some Jacqueline Carey (never finished that first book of hers, to be honest), Martin Amis, Douglas Adams, Alice Walker and Norman Mailer, among others.

James Baldwin, Upton Sinclair, Thomas Mann, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jonathan Swift....some great, memorable reads there.

More Nietzsche, Robert Penn Warren, along with some genre books that I received for review purposes back around five years ago.

Dostoevsky, Twain, Hardy, Gibson....very different styles, but I enjoyed most of these.

From a religious catechism to Kay's first trilogy (my grandmother's copies that I now get to keep) to Steinbeck on King Arthur to Jane Smiley...still some eclectic reads, no?

The Treasure Island and The Call of the Wild were gifts to me when I was around 8 years old.  And pictured here is one of my all-time favorite novels.  See if you can guess which one (not the T.H. White one, if that helps).

Although I like Jack White's music over Jack Whyte's prose, his Camulod stories aren't bad at all.  Enjoyed these a lot when I was in grad school.  Same goes for Mary Stewart's works.

Hitchhiker's omnibus to Saul Bellow's final work.  Perhaps these pictures have been a sort of bibliophile's Centrum, from A to Zinc?

Oh, and to think that there's probably another 300-400 books in my closet space that I couldn't photograph due to things being in my way.  Perhaps I'll remove these books later and photograph them for the few that are curious about my collection?