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books

How Do You Organize Your Books?

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I just recently bought a house, and it’s big enough that there’s room for a dedicated personal library. I’m very excited! It presents a really fun challenge: how do I organize my books now that I have enough space to display all of them? (Previously, I had been just shoving a bookcase wherever it would fit and stacking books on tables. I expect I’ll probably continue to do that, but the majority of my books will now fit in a single room.)

I was in library school when I first learned that some people organize their books by color. The effect is really cool, and I don’t think it would be that difficult to find a particular book since I tend to remember what color my own books are. I actually have this IKEA bookshelf where I’ve organized a few of my books in roy g biv on their sides from top to bottom. It looks pretty neat. When I was first dating my boyfriend, he moved into a new apartment and I convinced him to let me organize his books by color because I really wanted to see what it would look like. I found out later that he hated the idea, but he let me do it anyway. (Aww.) I can definitely see the drawbacks. For example, a lot of series books wouldn’t be shelved together since they each have a different cover color, like the Harry Potter books.

Aside from the IKEA shelf, my books right now (prior to moving into the new house) are organized in the standard alphabetical order by author’s last name. Most of what I own is fiction, and the few nonfiction titles I have occupy a single shelf and they’re not really in any particular order.

I say that my fiction is organized in alpha order, but that’s true only to a certain extent. Because we have limited space in our rental, I’ve divided them into hardbacks and paperbacks. The hardbacks go against the back of the shelf and the paperbacks go in front of the hardbacks. Most of my shelves are deep enough that this works without any of the books hanging over the edge. In theory, this allows me to see all of my books at once. In practice, I still have to lean the paperbacks forward to see the title of the hardbacks. I hope that this won’t be necessary in the new place. My graphic novels I also keep separate, and they occupy just a couple of shelves next to my cookbooks in the kitchen. (You see what I mean about putting books wherever there’s space?)

When I was a kid/teen and living with my parents, I’d frequently take a couple of hours and reorganize my bookshelf in my bedroom for fun. I loved looking at all of my books and remembering a title I had forgotten I had. At the time, I had a single bookcase and it seemed like I had quite a lot of books. Teenage Kimberly would look at my current collection and feel awed. I know the trend nowadays is often to downsize material possessions, including book collections, but acquiring books has always made me feel good and I’ve come to like that aspect of my personality. I do have a lot of books that I haven’t yet read, but the fact that they’re there comforts me. I always have a book at hand, on almost any topic, whenever the itch hits me – sci fi, contemporary, romance, high fantasy, classic, middle grade, YA, adult. I strongly associate books with memories, so almost each title I pick up reminds me of something good, like the first time I attended a library conference or a particularly engaging undergrad literature class.

In my new house, I’ve been toying with the idea of organizing my books more like they’re organized in a library. I think I want to separate my adult books from my children’s and teen books, and I may even decide to separate them by genre as well. I doubt I’ll go the color route, since I’ll be sharing the space with my boyfriend’s books (we don’t interfile!) and it would look a little odd to have some shelves in the room color-coded and others not.

I thought it might be fun to take a little informal poll to see how our readers organize their personal book collections. Feel free to elaborate on your system in the comments!

Audio Review: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

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I mentioned that Under the Banner of Heaven was next on my list after reading a couple of memoirs by Carolyn Jessop, who escaped the FLDS. Krakauer’s book focuses on the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica in 1984 by her brothers-in-law Ron and Dan Lafferty. The Lafferty brothers were not members of the FLDS, but they subscribed to many similar fundamentalist Mormon views, most notably polygamy (aka “celestial marriage”). For a period of time, they were involved with a group called the Crossfield School of Prophets, but mostly they acted separately from any recognized religion or cult. Ron soon came to believe that God told him to kill Brenda, whom he believed was responsible for his own wife leaving him.

While Krakauer’s investigation of the double murder is the central part of the book, the whole scope is actually quite broad. His intention was to explore “violent faith” as it occurs in fundamentalist Mormons. He chose Mormonism for this exploration because he grew up around a large Mormon population, though he was not Mormon himself. He writes about this in the last chapter of the book, and it’s strongly implied that the conclusions he draws about the origins of Mormon extremism are applicable to other faiths.

To get to those origins, Krakauer takes us on a long journey through Mormonism’s history. The modern, mainstream Mormon church vociferously distances itself from people like the Laffertys and the FLDS, but the seeds of the fundamentalist sects were planted in their shared history. Krakauer writes about Joseph Smith, the Mountain Meadows massacre, Brigham Young, the many violent clashes between Mormons and non-Mormons before the trek to Utah, the introduction of polygamy to the religion and its eventual abandonment of the practice due to pressure from the federal government (and its subsequent acceptance into the mainstream American culture). He brings up the point that because Mormonism is so new and came of age in the modern era, it’s subjected to a great deal of scrutiny, and its skeletons are harder to hide. Consequently, I knew about much of this before I read the book, but I still found Krakauer’s exploration of the personalities behind Mormonism’s founding immensely interesting. What draws me to nonfiction about cults (and religions in general) is my desire to understand what makes people believe what they do, especially when such beliefs are not widely accepted. Krakauer write at length about Smith and Young and their magnetic appeal, as well as the appeal of the messages they spread.

Krakauer also touches on a variety of Mormon fundamentalist offshoots, including the FLDS and the School of Prophets. He writes briefly about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping as well, and his interest seems to be not just the organized Mormon fundamentalist cults like the FLDS, but also how mainstream Mormons’ beliefs give way to individual fundamentalist beliefs, such as was the case with the Laffertys.

Krakauer talked at length with Ron Lafferty, who is in prison serving a life sentence (his brother Dan was executed). He’s quoted in the book frequently, and his account of the murders and the “revelation” he received from God are disturbing. I normally stay away from true crime because of this, and I can’t say I enjoyed the details of Ron’s acts, but what he revealed to Krakauer about his thought process and the development of his religious beliefs (which have changed in radical ways since he went to prison) was fascinating. I also found myself picturing what it would be like to be in Krakauer’s shoes, sitting across from Ron as he talked about his crimes.

This was published in 2003, four years before Carolyn Jessop wrote her memoir Escape. It was interesting to read the snippets of FLDS history with the knowledge of what Jessop would write about a few years later and the raid on the YFZ ranch that would soon follow. I wonder how Krakauer’s own book would have changed if it were written after these events (though the FLDS is not the focus).

Krakauer narrates the book himself, and he’s well-suited to it. He infuses a lot of personality into it, and he’s got a few unique mannerisms that I found interesting. Often when he’s quoting someone (Ron in particular, but also others not involved in violent acts, but merely witnesses to it), he’ll emphasize consonants. He’ll draw out the first “n” in anything and the “t” in pretty (as in “pretty much”). Sometimes it makes the dialogue come across as slightly mocking (very effective for Dan), sometimes just musical – it’s got a rhythm to it that is often missing from audiobooks narrated by their authors.

If you’re interested in the subject matter, I highly recommend this one.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.

Slowing Down for Summer

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Summer has been the time I’ve always used to “catch up” with things, in part because summer always meant Summer Reading Club at the library, which was frantic, fast-paced, and energy zapping. I’d find it incredibly therapeutic to spend free time speeding through book after book in order to be ahead of the reading game. I wanted to be well-read for when fall approached so I could write about the newest and hottest, as well as be prepared to give great reader’s advisory on those new titles.
This is the second year, though, I haven’t been at a library during the summer. I…can’t say I miss it much. I certainly miss working with the teens, and I definitely miss the opportunities afforded in working with people and books, but I don’t miss things like the over-programming, the stress about budgeting, about bureaucracy, about time and energy and being “on,” even when I felt completely and utterly “off.” 
Whereas last summer I was new to my job and learning the ropes, this year, I’m firmly into my routine and my projects. I know how much time is needed to accomplish the necessary things, as well as how much time I have to work on new things. Being away at BEA was an opportunity to think a lot about what I want for this summer, and in reflecting, I realized how valuable summer is not for getting ahead, but instead, for slowing down. 
I’m not going to spend this summer trying to plow through things. I’m not going to pile my to-be-read plans with miles-high stacks of everything coming out this fall so I can be the first to talk about it or know about it. 
Instead, I’m slowing down and investing in reading those back list titles that I’ve always intended to read but have yet to pick up.
I want to slow my roll — and my role! — a bit. There are so many things to know, to read, to think, to reflect, and to share. And the truth is, as much as I’d love to be ahead of the game where I can be, it’s important to realize that this is a thing I can’t and can never control. I don’t have the time to be first, and my prioritizing of energy over time management means that sometimes I don’t have the reserves in me to give everything I want to do the attention it deserves immediately. What’s best for me, I realize, is having a plan but allowing myself plenty of opportunities to be flexible within that plan. 
Despite having read abundantly in middle and high school, despite majoring in English, despite my library science background, there are still so many classics, especially more contemporary titles, I’ve missed out on. I’ve never read Toni Morrison, for one, and this summer I’m changing that, picking up The Bluest Eye. I’ve never read Margaret Atwood’s classic The Handmaid’s Tale, despite knowing how many books I adore reference it or are modern takes on the story. I’ve yet to crack open Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, even though it’s a book I admire on my shelf every single time I walk by, thinking about how much people I know absolutely adore it. 
There are less “classic-y” titles on my reading plans agenda this summer, too. I just picked up one of Megan Abbott’s earlier noir titles, This Song Is You, after reading and thinking about this great piece on the rise of feminist noir (I read and enjoyed the Larssen series, even though the writing itself left so much to be desired). I’ve got Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects to get through, as well as Night Film, which I think I talked about reading months and months ago. Maybe now is the time to follow through with that plan. 
A handful of unread Haruki Murakami titles are sitting on my shelf, too. I’ve always loved his strange, surreal, magical worlds. I want to fall back into one. 
I went through a big phase of buying backlist YA titles over the last couple of years, too, and I’m eager to dive into them headfirst. Bad Apple by Laura Ruby is one, as well as Rebecca O’Connell’s Myrtle of Willendorf (a recommendation from Liz from years ago I bought and let languish on my shelves) and Laura Kasischke’s Boy Heaven — I read Feathered years ago and still think about it. I admit to never having read S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, despite having read some of her other work, and perhaps it’s time to break that tradition, and I should certainly pick up one of the Francesca Lia Block bind-ups I’ve got on my shelf, too. I’m also still working through some Sarah Dessen backlist; I think I have just three left. 
Do I admit here, too, that perhaps I need to finally sit down and read Harry Potter from beginning to end? I made it to book 5 or 6 one summer while I was teaching middle schoolers about Shakespeare — they pressured me to — but it’s become such a cultural reference point that I feel obligated to revisit with a different, perhaps more excited, mindset. 

I’m feeling way less pressure when it comes to reading now, and a big reason is that I’ve made the conscious decision to not just slow down, but to not feel obligated to read everything that’s new. While that still makes up the bulk of my reading diet, I’m much more intentional about my choices. I’m not picking something up just because. Instead, I pick it up because I’m interested in it; I’m reading far more books across genres and styles not because of that. Perhaps it’s changed how I’m blogging a bit, since I don’t write reviews as much as I once did, but it’s changing my reading life for the better. Choosing to be intentional about reading backlist this summer and slowing down to drink in the words, language, and stories makes me even more excited to discover new favorites.

Without doubt, making this choice will encourage more excitement and engagement with those fall titles when I’m ready for them.

What are you reading this summer? What backlist should I be looking into? I am open to YA and adult fiction, as well as really solid, engaging non-fiction — memoirs by people of color or microhistories are especially appealing to me. Tell me your reading plans and what should be on my radar.

On Expectations of Female Characters: Guest Post by Trish Doller, Author of THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

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Today we have a guest post from Trish Doller, with a piece about why she decided to write her latest release, The Devil You Know. It’s a post about expectations we put on female characters, and why Cadie, the main character in Devil, came from those expectations. 


Bonus: a giveaway, including a signed copy of The Devil You Know and a paperback of Where The Stars Still Shine to one US/Canadian resident. 

I have a confession: I haven’t read any goodreads reviews of The Devil You Know. Because having already written two books, I can probably guess what the bad reviews might say. Cadie is a slut. She is a horrible daughter for not obeying her father. She is selfish. She is too stupid to live. She makes bad decisions. She deserves every terrible thing that happens to her. (You can go look to see if I’m right. I’ll wait here.)

I expect some readers to not like Cadie because the inspiration for her character was all the similar, terrible things readers said about Callie in Where the Stars Still Shine. Those reviews…I read them and it was so painful to see how unsympathetic people can be. Here was a broken, abused girl who was called a slut for the way she coped with her abuse. She was called a bitch for not always being nice to someone who was trying to be a friend. She was accused of being an ungrateful brat for not immediately embracing the good life her father gave her. 

Let me be clear, though…I’m not angry at those reviewers. They brought their own experiences and belief systems to their readings and they’re allowed to have their opinions. But I am pretty sad that we live in a society that makes it okay to call a girl “slut” for having sex or “bitch” for not being nice. I’m sad at how much we pass judgement on things that rub up against our beliefs, rather than practicing empathy.

Arcadia Wells was born from that sadness, a direct reflection of how it made me feel to see the hate heaped on Callie. If readers couldn’t muster sympathy for a brave, broken girl, I was going to give them a character who isn’t asking for their sympathy. If they had no difficulty labeling a girl who had been sexually abused a slut, I was going to give them a character who was unapologetic about her desires.

So I know there are going to be readers who hate Cadie. That’s fine. Because the readers who love her are going to see the girl I see. One who is brave and stupid. Strong and weak. A girl who wants to love and be loved in return. A girl who isn’t seeking permission or forgiveness from anyone but herself. 

I have another confession: I will probably never read any goodreads reviews of The Devil You Know. Because I wrote the girl I wanted the world to meet. She’s here for the sluts and the bitches and the selfish girls who dare to live.