Tuesday, August 6, 2013

A cross-section (Books on the floor)

So, I had to empty out the bookcases in the living room over the past few days, and stack them upstairs in my office, where they take up a good part of the floor. I did a rough estimation* and concluded there are about five hundred and twenty books here, give or take, temporarily arranged in twenty-eight stacks. Which book wound up uppermost on each stack I decided gave a kind of snapshot cross-section of our hardcover fantasy, so I thought I'd share. Keep in mind that if the same author appears twice, that  means he or she fills an entire row and then some:**


GHOSTS AND MORE GHOSTS -- Rbt Arthur

THE EMPTY HOUSE -- Blackwood

BORGES: A READER

SMITH --Ja. Branch Cabell

THE LAST APPRENTICE, Bk I -- Delaney

THE FOOD OF DEATH -- Dunsany

THE LAST BOOK OF JORKENS -- Dunsany

DON RODRIGUES -- Dunsany

PATCHES OF SUNLIGHT -- Dunsany

IN THE LAND OF TIME -- Dunsany***

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Richard Garnett

THE GOLDEN AGE -- K. Grahame

OUT OF THE STORM -- Wm Hope Hodgson

THE BRIDGE OF BIRDS -- Hughart

TIGANA -- G. G. Kay

KINGDOM COME (graphic novel)

THE HAUNTED WOMAN -- Lindsay

THE HORROR IN THE MUSEUM -- ghostwritten Lovecraft

THE BLACK GOD'S SHADOW -- C. L. Moore

THE BOOK OF THREE DRAGONS -- K. Morris

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD -- Pratchett

FEET OF CLAY -- Pratchett

LYRA'S OXFORD -- Pullman

TALES OF SCIENCE AND SORCERY -- Clark Ashton Smith

MISC. WRITINGS -- Clark Ashton Smith

THE THIRTEEN CLOCKS -- Thurber

THE COMPLETE FURSEY -- Mervyn Wall (autographed!)

ISLANDIA -- Austin Tappen Wright


A lot of books. And yet I keep coming across interesting-sounding ones I'd like to add, and a few among these that lose their place on the shelves from time to time, either going down to the box room, onto the read-and-decide-whether-to-keep pile, or (eventually) out the door.

--John R.

*roughly forty books per shelf, thirteen shelves on three bookcases somewhat taller than I am (the remaining two shelves being filled with old vinyl record albums. which I also had to move. those I haven't tried counting)


**excluding, of course, the less-interesting books which are downstairs in the Box Room, not having made the cut. And the paperbacks, which have a bookcase of their own in the Dining Room. And the Tolkien, which lives upstairs in my office. And all the other categories of books other than fantasy that have their own appropriate places and didn't have to be moved, this time.

***you might conclude I have a lot of Dunsany. you'd be right. I'm actually surprised Hodgson didn't turn up twice.




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2 comments:

  1. Paul WAugust 8, 2013 at 7:00 AM

    I'm very interested in your take on Delaney's Last Apprentice series. I think it is remarkably and rather original, his take on religion is extremely harsh (I would prefer a more nuanced view) and the world is rather dark, especially for a set of novels aimed at children. The relationship between Tom, his mother, the Spook, and Alice is far more complicated then one usually finds in young adult literature as well.

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  2. John D. RateliffAugust 14, 2013 at 1:43 PM

    Hi Paul
    re. Delaney's THE LAST APPRENTICE, I think highly of it. I bought the first book for no better reason than I liked the cover art and thought the description sounded interesting. Having read the first book I now intend to read the entire series (which I think has just concluded with the fourteenth book); I've read three so far, so this will be ongoing for some time to come. Janice is reading them too, and is slightly ahead of me (think she's already done with the fourth book and has the fifth in her queue).

    Good concept, interesting setting, believable characters who make mistakes, but they're reasonable mistakes; Delaney is blessedly free of Rbt Jordan disease. In short, one among those really good young adult series we've been lucky enough to have coming out lately.

    --John R.

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