What's On The Bookshelf? - I

Okay, I had a weird thought tonight while I was reading through my regular blogs (the sidebar has details) and perusing the backlog of blogs in my pending list.

What is it that makes me read these blogs? Why do I enjoy these insights into other people's lives and experiences especially if I don't actually know them?

Actually, those questions haven't just popped up tonight. I've been thinking about them pretty much since my visitor numbers (according to my blog stats) got beyond the list of friends and family I know I told about this little online escapade.

I can't honestly say my life is exciting or unusual. I have had the good fortune to have travelled recently, which is something I absolutely love to do. But that's not the sort of thing that keeps me reading other blogs.

What I've concluded is this:- I actually like to connect to the real life, opinions and experiences of other bloggers.
It's interesting getting to know someone through their writing, almost like making a long-distance friend. It's actually a bit of a testament to the writing, no matter how mundane the subject, that draws a reader back for more connection. Humour helps. After all a smile is always welcome.

So, where is this taking me you ask? To my weird idea, finally. :roll:

I thought that I would start another ongoing series of entries.
You see, I believe that my library of books and I aren't really separate entities. Anybody out there studied Symbolic Archaeology? No? Why the heck not?
Anyway, here's the short version:
You can tell a lot about a culture (person) by their artefacts (books).
Much more than you might at first believe possible. So I thought I would share a little bit of me with you, through my book collection.

This idea, along with being slightly offbeat, is also fairly scary. What does my collection of books actually say about me? What impression will I be giving, and how fast will people run away? I guess I won't know until I put it out there for reader consumption, so here goes...

Small bookcase - Top Shelf, First Half

• Emma - Jane Austen


• Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon - Jane Austen


• Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen


• Persuasion - Jane Austen


• Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen


• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen


• A Celtic Miscellany


• The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan


• Milton, selected poems


• Three Gothic Novels
  
  
  
  • The Castle of Otranto - Walpole
  
  
  • Vathek - Beckford
  
  
  • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
  
  
  
  


• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde


• Men at Arms - Evelyn Waugh


• Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh


• The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe


• A Sentimental Journey - Laurence Sterne


• Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling


• Tennyson, selected poems


• A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens


• A Wordsworth Treasury


• The Hobbit - J.R.R.Tolkien


• Freedom in Exile - The Dalai Lama

There, I've started it.
And we learn that I am slightly compulsive - must have books by the same author shelved together; and at some point in my life I went through a phase of reading 18th and 19th century works. Hmmm.
But in my defence, there is a place on my shelves for odd and funny tales about animals, as well as epics involving short, hairy humanoids.

Maybe this was a bad idea. :?