All the Frills: Books, Books, Books

I typically ask for books for Christmas gifts, which means that, post-holiday, I inevitably have to set aside some time to do shelf shifting and organizing in my home library to accommodate new volumes. You might not know it at first glance but my books are carefully organized. I keep the bulk of my fiction in my basement bookshelves so the one’s on the main floor are just some of the overall collection.

I basically have four shelving units in the living room and dining room. One is reserved for art books. Two are all my history books, internally organized into the following themes: historical and anthropological theory, non-British history (organized by country), surveys of British history, biographies (organized chronologically), and specialized Tudor and Stuart histories (organized into the categories of women’s and gender history, religious history, political history, social history, crime, witchcraft and magic, domestic culture, portraiture, and elite studies). Then I have a shelf of “nice” editions of books related to British history (some are legit rare books). And the final shelving unit has “nice” editions of classic fiction, Shakespeare and Spenser, ancient non-fiction authors (mostly Cicero, Tacitus, and Plutarch – the fiction by classical authors, like Euripides, Homer, and Aeschylus is mixed in with the rest of the fiction), Renaissance and early modern non-fiction authors (Machiavelli, etc), British history primary sources (edited editions of letters, diaries, the writings of Elizabeth I, etc), and a small section of books on mythology.

So, yeah, when I get a few new books, actually integrating them into the collection takes some time…

Weekend Reading

• I am absolutely smitten with the Guggenheim’s response to Trump’s request to borrow a Van Gogh.
  
• I can only make it through the first five or so of these victim impact statements against Larry Nassar before beginning to bitterly weep.
  
• I love this statement on the intersection between medical professionals and their religious beliefs.
  
• And, in the world of camels and beauty pageants (I imagine it’s a relatively small world).
  
• This essay on how we’re socialized to dismiss female pain as of secondary concern to male pleasure is wonderful.