Some people go to dinner parties and look in the medicine chest and bathroom drawers to see what kind of interesting medications people have. Not me. I sneak peeks at people's books and bookshelves.
People who come to my place would see the following:
This is our second bedroom which is known as "The Writing Room." It overlooks the harbor and is painted in a lovely three-version shade of the same blue. Very calming. This particular bookshelf sits under the window and, as you can see, houses a lot of crap. The books here are mostly annuals from high school, my husband's non-fiction books, our
Anne Rice collection, and a lot of his political books.
Back in the corner, behind my writing desk, is another bookshelf that's kind of funky in its build. We got it eons ago at
Crate and Barrel and it houses a lot of our Hollywood books. Things like how to write screenplays, entertainment guides, autobigraphies of
Gable,
Grant, and
Chaplin, to name a few. My husband's two prized book collections (
Maupin's Tales of the City and
The Tao of Pooh and
The Te of Piglet) are here.
To the left
(...to the left...every book I own is to the left, to the left...) is my bookshelf. It's sectioned off into the top section with most all of my cooking books, the next shelf with all of the travel books, maps, and guides, and then the rest is dedicated to my romance novels. You can't really tell, but where
Mr. Bigglesworth and
Austin Powers sit, the books are stacked three deep. I have every
Sandra Brown and
Barbara Delinsky book ever written. (Including the ones Sandra wrote as Laura Jordan, Rachel Ryan, and Erin St. Claire.)
This is my Young Adult bookshelf. As you see, it's a little sparse, but there's a reason why. I only started reading YA two years ago, whereas I've been reading romance and women's fiction for 28 years. (I know!) So, it was only fitting that I get the YA shelf ready to hold even more books. As you see, one shelf features my critique partner's,
Diana Peterfreund, books with a picture of us. That section will only expand when the rest of her
Secret Society Girl books and her new
killer unicorn YA urban fantasy series hit bookstores.
One shelf has my First Love by Silhouette books. It's a complete series of all the books they put out starting in like 1981. These books were amazing and my best reading friends. As you can see by how beat up they are, they got read a lot. My niece "inherited" the books and read them to death, as well, showing that the stories stood up for generations to come. You can bet I'm keeping these forever!
The top shelf is for me. See those Greek temples? Well, those are antique bookends that my husband bought for me for my last birthday. They are to hold...my sorority books when they come out. Get it? Sorority...Greek... Awww... Also on that shelf are fellow
Puffin authors, like my friend,
Linda Gerber and her
Students Across the Seven Seas books.
More books. No order. Mix of mine and hubby's with some "household" stuff in there, as well. I think that's the binder with all of our mortgage information in it.
Here in the living room, in the secretary I inherited from my grandparents, is my collection of "vintage" books. The red ones up top are all classics with copyright dates going back to the 1930s. I have one book of "Plays for Little Actors" with an 1896 copyright date! (Also, note the pic of dear old Dad when he was in the Navy in WWII and the dried flowers in the middle are what's left of my wedding bouquet.)
I should be embarrassed to show this, but what they heck. This is the kingdom of books that lives next to my side of the bed (note photographic placement of five-fingered slippers from
The Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France. LOL!) These are the "must read soon" books that line my bedroom. These are the books that constantly get rearranged into preference order and the stacks move according to my reading mood. If a book is
really
luck, it gets moved up here...
...to the bedside table. (I took these pics a while ago, so both of these books have been read and stored back in The Writing Room.)
So, that's a look at my condo full of books. This doesn't include the myriad cookbooks in my kitchen, or the boxes full of books in the closet at my sister's house in Florida that I sent to her to read.
Now, I tag,
Alexgirl,
Elizabeth Mahon, and
Mel Francis.
Where is the strangest place you store your books?
Marley = ) Sorority Rush Begins - May 2008
Rush - A Sisterhood Novel
Pledge Class - A Sisterhood Novel
Puffin BooksWhat I'm reading right now: TWILIGHT by
Stephanie Meyer 
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