Weekly Rundown: Musical Bookshelves

One of the jobs on my imaginary To-Do list has been to reorganise my bookshelves. I should clarify the imaginary part of my To-Do list as saying that it isn’t something I’ve had written down anywhere, just that it’s a list of things I’d like to get done at some point. It means there’s less pressure to get those things done and if I forget about then, it doesn’t really matter.

I think the last time I did this was probably about two years ago, around the time that I got my white ‘children’s bookcase’ because I suddenly had a lot more space for my books so used it as an excuse to get a lot of the books that were hidden away in boxes and cupboards out on display. I’ve moved things around a little since then as I finished all the Terry Pratchett books and moved those from my main bookcase into the cupboard in Tara’s bedroom, but that’s about it.

In the last couple of months I’ve finished reading all of the Harry Potter novels as well as the last few non-Discworld Terry Pratchett books, so it seemed as good a time as any to update my bookcase and exchange those books for some which I’ve been planning to read for a while but haven’t gotten round to as they’re not easily accessed.

But this isn’t a small undertaking by any means, which explains why I’ve taken a while to get around to doing this. I think Mr Click was a little bit surprised as I came downstairs with a shopping bag, a big blue tub, a big cardboard box, a collapsible crate and two big 48-litre plastic tubs. When I proceeded to unload all of these books into piles on the floor, along with the contents of the cupboard in Tara’s room, I think he may have been beginning to regret agreeing that this was a good day to do this.

It took about an hour and a half to sort all the books into various categories (children’s, fantasy, Tolkien, classics, mystery/thriller, Mr Click’s books, non-fiction, and chick lit), along with working out which ones I actually wanted to read at some point in the future. Then I had to take off all the books I’d finished with from my bookcases and put all the ones I was going to read back on.

I also planned to weed out some of the books that I no longer wished to keep. A good plan but one which I ultimately failed on. I managed to select precisely one book to pass on to my Mum-in-Law, purely because it’s a duplicate. That’s not to say that other duplicates have been weeded out, certain books are special enough to warrant having multiple copies, just not this one. So, yeah, that’s one less book to have to sort in the future.

That picture up there kind of makes me smile because those are the books which have been returned to the boxes and stowed away upstairs in the cupboard. With the exception of about three piles, they’re all book that I have read in the last three to five years. It’s kind of scary. I wonder how many hours are contained within those books. And that’s not even including all the ebooks or borrowed books I’ve read.

Moving the boxes back upstairs was not the most sensible of jobs to take on as I’ve been suffering from a sore neck the last couple of days. I suspect that lugging boxes upstairs was not the most effective remedy for this. I’ve recruited Mr Click as chief neck massager and so far that seems to be doing the trick.

As has lying in the bath reading Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley’s Frankenstein, my current Reading Challenge book. This week we’re onto Week 6 ‘a book by an author under the age of 30’. I was tempted to look for a more modern book for this week and I did get as far as going through the books I had on my bookcase to check the ages of those authors. I never actually made it that far though as Frankenstein ticked the box of one of those books I’ve been carrying around on my Kindle for years without actually reading.

It’s not quite what I was expecting. The monster didn’t actually seem to play much of a part until nearly halfway through, there are three different voices narrating the story which I wasn’t expecting, and it’s really really depressing. But I’m pleased that I chose this book for this week.

Now I'm reading a book that I've borrowed from a colleague, it's called Nightfall (by Stephen Leather). He wrote for the TV series Murder in Mind which we watched a few years ago and although I'm only two chapters in, it's compelling reading.

Plans for this week? I don't really have any. Aside from my reading, obviously. Oh and knitting. Despite not finishing my socks that I have on my needles I've started a little teddy bear. And I'm still working on a cross stitch as well. Perhaps this week I should try and finish some of what I've started...