Part three! We’ve left the studio and have entered the living room!
My gray shelves have been with me since college. There’s nothing special about them– I think we bought them at Walmart or someplace like that, but my Dad reinforced them and made them incredibly sturdy. I keep painting them whenever my overall home decor changes. Right now, they’re gray, but they’ve been green or blue before.
The top shelf includes some of my favorite historical fiction, which includes mystery series set in the Victorian era.
I don’t know why Station Eleven is shelved with historical fiction. I also don’t know why the mystery series are shelved out of order. Derp.
- The Half-Drowned King (The Half-Drowned King #1) by Linnea Hartsuyker
- The Sea Queen (The Half-Drowned King #2) by Linnea Hartsuyker
- The Golden Wolf (The Half-Drowned King#3) by Linnea Hartsuyker
- Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (purchased at Mál og Menning in Reykjavik, Iceland)
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell trilogy #1) by Hilary Mantel
- Bring up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell trilogy #2) by Hilary Mantel
- The Mirror and the Light (Thomas Cromwell trilogy #3) by Hilary Mantel
- A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn
- A Curious Beginning(Veronica Speedwell #1) by Deanna Raybourn
- A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) by Deanna Raybourn
- Some Danger Involved (Barker and Llewellyn #1) by Will Thomas
- The Limehouse Text (Barker and Llewellyn #3) by Will Thomas
- The Black Hand (Barker and Llewellyn #5) by Will Thomas
- The Hellfire Conspiracy (Barker and Llewellyn #4) by Will Thomas
- Anatomy of Evil (Barker and Llewellyn #7) by Will Thomas
- Fatal Enquiry (Barker and Llewellyn #6) by Will Thomas
- Hell Bay (Barker and Llewellyn #8) by Will Thomas
- Old Scores (Barker and Llewellyn #9) by Will Thomas
- Blood is Blood (Barker and Llewellyn #10) by Will Thomas
The bottom shelf! Sorry about the shadow. My apartment is shadowy.
The first two from the left are the art history textbooks from my first year of college. I’m not getting rid of them because A) they are super useful when I need to refer back to some bit of art history, and B) my professor helped write them. Her name is right there on the spine (Mamiya). Once again, I did not read the dictionaries.
- Gardners’s Art Through the Ages, Eleventh Edition vol. 1 by Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey
- Gardners’s Art Through the Ages, Eleventh Edition vol. 2 by Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey
- Brian Froud’s World of Faerie by Brian Froud
- The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano
- Faeries by Alan Lee and Brian Froud
- The Art of Michael Whelan by Michael Whelan
- Good Faeries Bad Faeries by Brian Froud
- Steampunk: An Illustrated History by Brian J. Robb
- Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, & Heretics by Jason Porath
- Steampunk Emporium: Creating Fantastical Jewelry, Devices and Oddments from Assorted Cogs, Gears and Curios by Jema “Emilly Ladybird” Hewitt
- Drawings of the Masters: French Drawings from the 15th Century Through Géricault with text by Jean Vallery-Radot
- Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton (unread)
- Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere by Michael Kimmelman (unread)
- What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
- The Tale of the Shining Princess adapted by Sally Fisher from a translation from the Japanese by Donald Keene
- The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman
- Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer
- Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition
- Langenscheidt’s New Concise German Dictionary
So there’s the first bookcase in the living room. There are two more in here- my photography books, a stack of antiques, and the Tolkien bookcase. Then we’ll see the main, 5-shelf bookcase with my classics and science fiction and fantasy.
Traveling in Books 
Ooh, I love Brian Froud! I must treat myself to one of his books. Can I ask which is your favourite?
You know I have no clue about steampunk…I hear the term and go hmmm
OF the books that I own? Probably ‘Fairies’, which he did with Alan Lee. Though my favorite painting of Froud’s is probably Morgana le Fey, which is in the Good Fairies/Bad Fairies book.
Steampunk is generally (but not always) set in Victorian England and assumes the development of robotics, airships, and computers based on Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, but instead of being powered by electricity, everything is steam-powered. There may be magical or paranomal elements. It’s a fun subgenre, but I don’t read that much of it.
Cool. Thank you!!
You’re welcome!
Hahaha– I never would have noticed about the shadow. You’re definitely a photographer. 😉
Steampunk Emporium sounds so cool! Have you made anything from this book? I’m not even remotely crafty, but I love the idea of crafting.
Ugh, you’re not alone in having books out of order. I find that it’s difficult to keep my series books in order, particularly when my husband is reading them. He never puts them back in order. He’s an agent of chaos. But I struggle to do that too, sometimes. I didn’t know why! It’s a weird quirk of my shelves. Series together? Yes. In order? Rarely.
Those illustrated books! I’m adding the Tale of Genji to my TBR. I’d love to get a copy.
I haven’t made anything from the Steampunk book (yet)! I had kind of forgotten about it until I went through all the titles for this. I’ll have to give one or two of the projects a shot sometime.
I don’t have the excuse of a spouse/roommate putting the books in out of order, I just put them away wrong, even though it would have bugged me if I’d realized they were out of order! (They’re back in their proper order now…)
This edition of Genji is beautiful! I hope you find a copy! I found mine through abebooks.com I don’t remember how much it cost, though.
Thanks Kim 🙂
If you do craft anything from the book, I’d love to see it. I find the concept of Steampunk fascinating and very appealing. The combination of Victorian clothing and values and intense love of science makes me so happy for some reason. It’s a bit incongruous and yet makes perfect sense.
Will do! I love the Steampunk aesthetic, too. The clothes aren’t always the most practical, but I do love the science-mindedness and tinkering aspects of it.
That’s my biggest pet peeve with fantasy worlds in general. The clothing is NEVER practical.
My husband plays a lot of video games. Recently, he started a Warhammer 40K strategy game. I went to pester him while he was playing and he said, “Uh. I just want you to know, I don’t approve of this game’s fashions.” All the female warriors are basically wearing pasties and g-strings while the men are all in full suits of armor. I HATE that. So. Dumb.
Right? I’ve found it’s mostly with fantasy video games and movies, because visual media. They always seem to go with the “outfits” that bare the most skin. It’s getting better, but still not great. Books seems to be better, when they deal with clothes at all. Assuming they don’t obsess over the clothes..
Though, with the steampunk aesthetic, it’s the corsets and heeled shoes I couldn’t do, thought I suppose if I wanted to get into it, I could do a lady adventurer or mystic librarian sort of persona. 🙂 The fun thing about steampunk (or any of the –punks) is that you make it your own.
Hahaha. Are you thinking of Robert Jordan and his obsession with Min wearing pants, perchance? 😉
Yeah, the creativity of the -punks is one of the best parts. There are very limited rules so you always get to make your own!
The Art of Michael Whelan is a favorite of mine I enjoy flipping through every so often. Such incredible artwork, and it’s great to see it not just in the art book but also as covers on favorite books.
Isn’t it wonderful artwork?! I wish current artists used more actual paint these days instead of computer art. There’s a luminous quality that acrylic provides that computers can’t match.