Here's my bookshelf!

Joining what may be my most favourite linkup ever-What's on Your Bookshelf, with the always wonderful Modern Mrs. Darcy. 

I just love books. And bookshelves. I think I've got a board of Pinterest dedicated to beautiful bookshelves because they really are just one of the most wonderful things we can have in our homes. I have dreams of a whole library in my house with books on every wall, or putting shelving along the ceiling of a bedroom and filling with books, or making an old decrepit fireplace into a bookshelf floating around my head. But these things aren't quite fitting with our home as it is right now so I do the best I can with two bookshelves in our main living area. I've got more books than fit on these shelves right now, some are downstairs in boxes, there are growing piles in my bedroom, with homeschooling there has already been another influx of books, and every child's room as stacks of books here and there. But that's all fine with me as I think a house overflowing with books is just about perfect! 

Here's my favourite bookshelf. I try to keep all the pretty books on it, as well as my personal favourites. I've made one of my hobbies/life goals to buy every book by my favourite authors in as old an edition as I can get my hands on. I'm not looking so much for first editions, but I do love the idea of a book with age and history so that I can imagine who read it before me and where they delved into its pages. I also think antique books are just beautiful. So far I've gotten quite a few Chesterton books from used book stores here and there as well as eBay. I hope to own every book by Agatha Christie one day and as she wrote more than 60 I think that's a good goal for my lifetime! I'm also a huge P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy Sayers fan so I scoop up editions whenever I can.

I'm also a lover of hardcover. I now almost refuse to buy paperback if there is an option. Hardcover just lasts better on a shelf, looks nicer, and brings such a great sensory experience while reading. I'm also allergic to the dust covers. I'm your basic book snob. 

All that book snobbery aside, I do make room for old paperbacks when they're the awesome Penguin variety! And I've found some really great old copies of Chesterton that are rare and hard to find in paperback that I really love a lot.

Here's a funny shelf that has classics, Catholic essays, books on detective fiction and Shakespeare, prayer books, a book about a saint, and Edith Head. I'm a sucker for good variety, what can I say!

And another look at a crazy mix of books. A shelf full of papal works with some coffee table reads and a children's Bible, followed by the kids shelf which includes what feels like hundreds of kids books, and any untold number of library books that should have been returned months ago!

Here's another shelf that describes most of my interests fairly well: you've got your parenting books, stay at home mom books, Catholic mom books, various spirituality books, a smattering of detective fiction, great literature like Mariette in Ecstasy and The Brothers Karamazov, a little Chesterton and Jane Austen. Its like my brain on a shelf!

Looking at these shelves up close I wonder if my interests are too focused? Can there be too much Chesterton? Is there a limit to how many different varieties of Catholic spirituality one should read about? Oh well, another problem for another day.

Here's a couple more shelves of what seems like a strange cocktail of books, yet I really love most of them!

I'm going to stop here before I really get carried away, but I've been having so much fun seeing others amazing bookshelves this week! 

So what about you? Any favourites of yours up on my shelves??

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