We’re continuing with the bookshelf tour! This bookcase is the second one in my little studio- the one where my nonfiction lives. I don’t have as much nonfiction as I do fiction, and I’m less likely to keep nonfiction once I’ve read it.
My nonfiction titles are loosely arranged by the Dewey Decimal system, though I’m sure my librarian friends would completely rearrange them if they saw the shelf. My history books are mostly arranged chronologically by topic.
Once again, I’ll provide a Goodreads link for the books, so if you’re curious you can look them up. I’ll also mark the books I haven’t read. Except for the dictionaries. I don’t sit down and read dictionaries.
Top Shelf: General nonfiction
- Collins Irish/English Dictionary
- King James Bible (partly read)
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly (unread)
- The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (unread)
- We Are Stardust: Leading Scientists Talk About Their Work, Their Lives, and the Mysteries of Our Existence by Stefan Klein
- The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks
- The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan
- An Elementary Old English Grammar
- Dutch Dictionary
- Oxford New French Dictionary
- Candide by Voltaire (French language, unread)
- Lettres Choisies by Marie de Rabutin-Chantal de Sévigné (French language, unread)
- La Religieuse by Denis Diderot (French language, unread)
- Le Mort du Roi Arthur by Unknown (French language, unread)
- Das Leben der anderen by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (German language, unread)
- The Immense Journey by Loren Eisley
- The Lion in the Living Room: How Housecats Tamed Us and Took Over the World by Abigail Tucker
- The Illustrated A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (unread)
- The Hunt for Vulcan:… And How Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered Reality by Thomas Levison
- Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Suskind and Art Friedman (unread)
- The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav (unread)
- Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
- Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson
- Leonardo’s Notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci (unread)
- A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
- The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major
- The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ann Morgan
- Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth by A.O. Scott
- Medieval Women Writers edited by Katharina M. Wilson
- The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione (unread)
Bottom Shelf: History
Next to the books, I have a little shelf with crafting supplies. There are inks for journaling and two of the several kinds of glues I have.
- Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings by Tom Shippey
- Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad by Brian R. Catlos (unread)
- Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 by Dan Jones
- The Black Prince: England’s Greatest Medieval Warrior by Michael Jones (unread)
- The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones (unread)
- Richard III: England’s Most Controversial King by Chris Skidmore (unread)
- 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (unread)
- Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (unread)
- The Oxford History of Ireland by R.F. Foster
- Wars of the Irish Kings: A Thousand Years of Struggle from the Age of Myth through the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I by David Willis McCullough
That wraps up the second part of the bookshelf tour. Not as many books this time around, but I don’t have that much nonfiction, though there will be a bit more in the next installment.
Traveling in Books 
I’ve this (as you know) in college, I took a bible as literature class. Of course, the Bible had just come out then, so it was more of a trending thing….
Very cool! I don’t read a lot of nonfiction – mostly archaeology, paleontology, and gender biographies – but they do tend to add a little grandeur to the shelves. 🙂
I get it. It’s totally okay to read trendy things. The KJV has some lovely poetry…
They certainly do! I just picked up a bunch of inexpensive popular history books, so I may have to do another nonfiction bookshelf tour when this is all done…
I’ve attempted to read the bible front to back. I never get very far before getting bored and hopping around to interesting parts. I tried listening to a dramatized version of the bible as well, which was really cool, but eventually lost interest there too. I still would like to read the entire thing one day.
I’ve read sections of it, but never the whole thing front to back. I don’t think I could manage that. Especially once you get to the endless begats.
That’s were I often stop. I think I managed to make it through there once or twice lol
I’m glad to see you have a Bible. I think that’s an important addition to all libraries. We need to understand the stories in the bible, regardless of whether you are religious or not, to recognize where things come from. It’s so influential! Though, I don’t think I’d ever read it cover to cover. Maybe if I participated in a Bible study course?
How do you decide what books to buy/keep? This is such a varied collection of non-fiction!
I agree. I’m not religious, but having a knowledge of basic Bible stories really helps you understand references in the wider culture. Steve Donoghue has some videos about certain books of the Bible, assuming you can find them…
I buy nonfiction books the way I buy fiction– if it looks interesting, I’ll give it a shot. I’m generally curious, so I’m open to reading books on most topics. If I’ve read the book, and it’s likely that I’ll reread it or refer back to it at some point, then I’ll hang onto it.
I like that philosophy on keeping books. I definitely need to go through my books and decide what I will refer to or reread. I’m running out of space and my shelves need a purge!
I’m pretty much always looking at my shelves and trying to decide what I’m going to keep or get rid of. I just have so little space.