Your Book Collection

[Vertical Gunn]

What books do you own? Here's my collection titles:


Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Gone
Shark Life
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony
The Wide Window
The Slippery Slope
Runescape: The Official Handbook
Haunted Kingsport: Ghosts of Tri-City Tennessee
Haunted Jonesborough
What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7
Bull Run
Lord of the Flies
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Cay
Stay Out of the Basement
The Drawing of the Three
The Gunslinger
Red Dragon
Flowers for Algernon
Carrie
The Colorado Kid

[mack]

you know there's a great website where you can post not only your book collection - you can post your videogame collection, and restaurant list. you can also review them, and link them on FaceBook.

I guess I could post my entire library, but Im probably 1/4th of the way thru it on http://livingsocial.com.

[Lucifer Prometheus]

I need more bookshelves:(

[mack]

me too. :( SF you should join it, then I could look at your bookshelf. :D

[Holden Pike]

I have hundreds of books, none of them Harry Potter or Stephen King.

[mack]

i get the impression that your bookshelf would probably make me feel like I'm swinging my legs off of a dime, Holden. :D

[Lucifer Prometheus]

Here are the contents of one shelf:

Dickens, Dali & Others by George Orwell
My Disillusionment In Russia by Emma Goldman
Living My Life vol 1&2 by Emma Goldman
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist by Alexander Berkman
Basic Rights by Henry Shue
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936 by Murray Bookchin
Cuban Anarchism by Frank Hernandez
The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective by Sam Dolgoff
The Philosophy of John Dewey edited by John J. McDermott
Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky
Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods by James Herod
The Abolition of the State: Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives by Wayne Price
The Marx-Engels Reader edited by Robert C. Tucker
The Lenin Anthology edited by Robert C. Tucker
The State: It's Historic Role by Peter Kropotkin
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin
Fields, Factories and Workshops by peter Kropotkin
God and the State by Mikhail Bakunin
The Black Jacobins by CLR James

[Tacitus]

I'm now pretending to people that I don't like reading - last Christmas I was given 'books' by such luminaries as Jeremy Clarkson and Gordon Ramsay.

I fear that I won't be heeded, however, and can put money on being given something by Richard Hammond (the little bug-eyed bloke out of Top Gear) this year. :(

The local charity shop now look forward to my January visits. :D

[Vertical Gunn]

I'm reading Red Dragon right now. I haven't even read most of the books I have. After I'm done with this one, I'm reading The Silence of the Lambs. :yup:

[Thursday Next]

Gosh, far too many to type up, even if they weren't all in storage right now. I own more books than movies, although I've seen more movies than I've read books. The books I have next to my bed right now (so currently reading) are

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Mighty Book of Boosh
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I am half thinking of posting a list of my top 100 books in the manner of the top 100 film lists done on here, but can't get my head round my top 20 films for bobby's new mofo top 100 list at the moment so that may have to wait.

Tatty - I always thought celeb biographies are a strange kind of book. Not written by the author and only read by people who don't like reading.

[Tacitus]

They're just easy stocking-fillers, I guess. I suppose the Clarkson one wouldn't have been that bad (if you like him, and I do) because it's a collection of his newspaper articles but the whole concept just seems so lazy.

The 100 books list sounds a great idea. :up:

[Lucifer Prometheus]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony
Flowers for Algernon
Carrie
Ah, so I see that you enjoy fantasy and science fiction. I do as well. I think that you'd probably like The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien if you haven't read it yet and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin as well. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is a lot of fun, and you should read it immediately:D
And if you haven't read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and the rest of the His Dark Materials trilogy,(forget the movie- it was a travesty) you're missing out of some great reading.

Have fun!

[Godoggo]

Here are the contents of one shelf:
Cuban Anarchism by Frank Hernandez

Thank you. That's one of those books I keep meaning to read, but keep forgetting to.

Mack,
I will have to try that site you mentioned. I used to be on Shelfari, but found it boring.

[Lucifer Prometheus]

I highly recommend it. Have you read the Dolgoff book on the Cuban Revolution? It is a must read for anyone interested in all the stuff that both capitalist and Marxist historians tend to gloss over. While Dolgoff and Hernandez cover some of the same ground, the two books complement one another rather well.

Here is a link to the full text of the Dolgoff book (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/bright/dolgoff/cubanrevolution/toc.html).


I must warn you however that the text formatting on a couple of chapters towards the end seems to be FUBAR. This renders these chapters basically unreadable. Most of the book is available online if you follow the link though.

Dolgoff begins thus:

Between reactionary "pro-Batistianos" and "revolutionary Castroites," an adequate assessment of the Cuban Revolution must take into account another, largely ignored dimension, i.e., the history of Cuban Anarchism and its influence on the development of the Cuban labor and socialist movements, the position of the Cuban anarchist movement with respect to the problems of the Cuban Revolution, and libertarian alternatives to Castroism.

Today's Cuban "socialism" differs from the humanistic and libertarian values of true socialism as does tyranny from freedom. There is not the remotest affinity between authoritarian socialism or its Castro variety and the libertarian traditions of the Cuban labor and socialist movements.

The character of the Latin American labor movement -- like the Spanish revolutionary movement from which it derived its orientation -- was originally shaped, not by Marxism, but by the principles of anarcho-syndicalism worked out by Bakunin and the libertarian wing of the International Workingmen's Association -- the "First International" -- founded in 1864.

[Sawman3]

My book collection... too many to list, hundreds more, maybe thousands, in storage. I just can't resist paperbacks (yes paperbacks. I prefer them to hardbacks, even). One of the things I love most about the Village in NYC are the little tables on the sidewalks where people sell old paperbacks.

[Lucifer Prometheus]

I'm guessing that you also frequent the Strand Bookstore?

[Sawman3]

I would if I lived in NYC ;)

[Sedai]

There is no way I could list all my books. I am 37 and have been reading since I was 4. You do the math...

[linespalsy]

I guess part of this is just that I don't have the collection-for-the-sake-of-collection impulse that a lot of nerds have, but access to a world-class research library has killed off most of the fun I used to have going to a book store. Even a good one like Strand can't compete with having immediate access to 11,000,000+ holdings (and semi-immediate access to everything else).

I still have a lot of books at home but I could lose most of them without much sadness.

Get a big kick out of going to Book Off though, research libraries tend not to carry much manga, and I've made some really great finds there.

[Caitlyn]

I used to have an extra room in my house that I had turned into a library and have no idea how many books I even owned at the time... after Katrina, I had it in my head to replace a lot of them... but then it dawned on me I don't really have room for a lot of books right now... so, unless I run across something really special like the Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960) I ran across not too long ago, I've put most of my book buying on hold....

[Lucifer Prometheus]

access to a world-class research library has killed off most of the fun I used to have going to a book store.But what about letting people borrow the books that you love? That's at least half the point of owning them.

[mark f]

Yeppers. I tend to have classics, film books, great artists and photographers, and some animation compendia. My wife, on the other hand, has turned our garage into a library with many bookcases and tons of fiction. Only about one-tenth are my books and only about one-tenth of hers are "classics". She has tons of modern fiction, mostly mysteries.

[Godoggo]

I highly recommend it. Have you read the Dolgoff book on the Cuban Revolution?

No, but I'll give a read before I read the other. I'll either print it out, or get it from the Civic Media Center here in town. They have all that stuff. :D

[Lennon]

Hardbacks make me feel like I'm going to just pick it up and commit murder.

[Lucifer Prometheus]

Having hardbacks makes me feel like a grownup:o

[mack]

Im with Lines - I used to live hither and yon, so I only bought the books I treasured dearly, and borrowed the rest from the library. One of my big things was always that as soon as I bought my house, I would convert one of the rooms to a library/sitting room like my parents used to have, and start buying all of the serious "grown-up" books that I didnt want to lose in a move. :D

I finally got the house and room, problem is the few shelves I have are beaten down leftover relics from college, my books are all over the house in piles, and Im so anal that I dont even want to put another book on the shelf until the entire room is painted and shelved properly (which will never happen). What's worse is that I have actually catalouged and almost dewey decimaled every book on the shelves I have up, but my housemates and vistors have no such reverence - and constantly mess up my system!

I've given up, because I am my own problem. When I have a jones for order, I go sit in Barnes and Nobles and Borders (because a hot cuppa is a must with a good book). On a bad day, I go into the basement of the local library and sit in the aisles.

[n3wt]

The biggest part of my book collection is the Discworld Novels by Terry Pratchett as they are amazing books.

Ank-Morpork is the type of place I would love to live and I would join the Assassins Guild lol

[Justin]

No way I could list all of the books I have...

[eMilee]

No way I could list all of the books I have...

i feel the same way but to name a few that i own are nick bantock's complete series of sabine's notebook, donna tartt's secret history ( i had read the paperback, i had to replace it with a hardback), sharyn mccrumb, and the annoted version of the great gatsby among other annoted books. i love a wide variety of books to read-- whether its ibsen or greg iles-- reading is and has always been an escape for me. i welcome the chance to experince new authors.

[n3wt]

You could just list some of your favorite books from your collection as I did.

[Lucifer Prometheus]

Or perhaps just a shelf of books as I did.

[Justin]

A majority of my collection contains books on Philosophy and Cinema, but I'll keep this list to Literature.

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Dubliners by James Joyce
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
The Stranger by Albert Camus

[BadaBing]

I enjoy the wonderful FREE services of the public library. I just don't see the point in buying books if you can check them out for free at the library. My bookshelf...is empty.

[DominoDeja]

Omg Harry Potter. I'm addicted and that book is so well writen!

[These Filthy Hands]

My book collection isn't as impressive as most people's. I tend to give my books away. I hang onto the ones that really left an imprint on me.

White Road: John Connolly
The Killing Kind: John Connolly
Dark Hollow: John Connolly
Bad Men: John Connolly
The Black Angel: John Connolly (Signed First Edition)
The Unquiet: John Connolly
The Reapers: John Connolly
American Psycho: Bret Easton Ellis
Thank You for Smoking: Christopher Buckley
Wild Justice: Phillip Margolin
Sleeping Beauty: Phillip Margolin
Monkeewrench: P.J. Tracy
Live Bait: P.J. Tracy
Dead Run: P.J. Tracy
Monstrosity: Edward Lee
The Hour Before Dark: Douglas Clegg
The Black Dahlia: James Ellroy
Department Thirty: David Kent
The Stand: Stephen King
The Shining: Stephen King
Desperation: Stephen King
Salem's Lot: Stephen King
The Regulators: Stephen King
Dreamcatcher: Stephen King
Land of the Living: Nikki French
Night in the Lonesome October: Richard Laymon
Last to Die: James Grippando
Swan Song: Robert McCammon
What Einstein Told His Cook: Robert L. Wolke
I'm Just Here for the Food: Alton Brown

The coup de gras:
The Hardest (working) Man in Showbusiness: Ron Jeremy

[Tacitus]

I fear that I won't be heeded, however, and can put money on being given something by Richard Hammond (the little bug-eyed bloke out of Top Gear) this year. :(

Mystic Dave strikes again!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/greenspagbol/PIC_0018.jpg

;D

[Harry Lime]

I buy used books, they're cheap and explains why I have so many. I really like Justin's list, Dostoyevsky and Camus are excellent (although I should say, these books sometimes contain more philosophy than philosophy books, don't you think Justin?). The Brothers Karamazov, what does a character in one of my other favourite books, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut say? "Everything about life can be found in The Brothers Karamazov". Something like that. 1984 and Brave New World, love these books, I sometimes think the world had become a synthesis of these two books, not as extreme, but metaphorically. Also, for good ole brilliant insanity, give me Nietzsche, or give me Kafka. I always thank that friend of Kafka's for not listening to him and burning his unpublished work.

[Harry Lime]

Also, for all you film fans who love Hollywood's last Golden Age, the 70's, give Peter Biskind's 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drug, and Rock N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood' a try.

[Dog Star Man]

This may be a digression... but I'm always impressed by Glenn Danzig's book collection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNO9k1TXS0

What I never knew until I saw this video is that a book of Werewolf stories are all well-documented... all true.

[Zanza]

Too many too count, I have something like 12 book shelves. Although many of the books I inherited from my parents, I probably got rid of double the amount that I currently own while cleaning out my parents' house after my mom died.

My mom had a book signed by Samuel Clemens, but I haven't been able to find it. Unfortunately, I think my brother stole it to pawn (he's an alcoholic). Also missing is my grandmother's engagement ring, which I had intended to give to my aunt. Effing alcoholics.

[rufnek]

My current book collection is comprised primarily of histories and classic detective stories. Most of my histories center on the period leading up to, during, and immediately after the Civil War. But I also have histories on aspects of World War II and on the westward expansion, particularly about Texas. Histories are fun reads for me, but my guilty passion is classic mysteries, especially Hammett whose books I've read over and over.

Every so often when my bookcases are overflowing and my wife starts demanding an old book permanently comes off the shelves to make way for a new one, I cull through them and give several to my grandkids (particularly the mysteries) and to my son's widow who has a history degree. There's a core group of hardbacks I keep, however. For instance, I have Mark Twain's complete works.