It is Friday, and that means it is time for Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. All images in this post may be clicked on for a larger version.
I thought I would begin a series of looking at the bookshelves, designed by me and made by my talented father, that reside in our upstairs library. At the end of the series I will post a larger image of the bookshelves as a whole.
This is the top level of a three-tiered shelf that stretches the length of the library wall, this being the view I see as I sit in my recliner. Let us travel, shall we?
I won’t always feature all the books in a given section, but with today’s post I decided to indulge. The topmost novel is Love Minus Eighty, one of my Favorite Books of 2013. The cover is amazing as it has a velum cover on which the hand and title are printed and the face is printed on the actual cover, giving a hint about the frozen state of some of the characters in the novel. Not only do I really like this story, but it has the added memory of being a book I was able to talk about on SF Signal’s podcast and due to my frustration about finding only damaged copies of the book at Barnes and Noble, I was sent a pristine copy by Orbit Books.
The Bread We Eat in Dreams is a short story collection I picked up from Subterranean Press. I purchased it because I enjoy the author’s work and also because I am a big fan of the art of Kathleen Jennings (who incidentally is now an author too).
Catherynne M. Valente has a unique style and a vast knowledge of fairy tale and folklore which she uses to great effect in the realization of her stories. Kathleen Jennings creates whimsical, wonderful drawings and intricately cut out stencil-style art, as can be seen on the cover for her upcoming book Flyaway.
I picked up this copy of Lorelei of the Red Mist from Haffner Press because I loved the cover art by artist Frank Kelly Freas. I was first aware of Brackett because of her work on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back. I have read one or two of her short stories, but have yet to get to this collection.
Finally, the remainder of the books on this shelf are various Flesk Publications volumes of the work of the incomparable Mark Schultz. I am a huge fan of Schultz’ work and have had the pleasure of meeting him on a couple of occasions at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live events here in Kansas City. John Fleskes creates wonderful art books and I highly recommend that you check out his newly designed website.
You will see in a later Traveling post that I have additional Mark Schultz volumes to share. I’m so excited that he is at work on a new Xenozoic Tales story.
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You have also noticed that my books share space with a BB-8 Christmas ornament, a DS-9 Christmas ornament, and if you look really close you will see a red Nuka-Cola cap, currency in the Fallout video game series. I geek out hard for this game, and have caps in various locations in my house as part of my geek decor, a nod to the fact that caps are spread all over the wastelands of the Fallout universe.
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If you missed them, my latest posts are:
Book Review: The Return of Tarzan
Book Review: The Dragonbone Chair
Venture Forth: The Summer Reading Program
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I wish everyone a great weekend. What book is on your to-read list for the weekend? Mine are in the comments below.
This weekend I plan to read more from the excellent Mary Oliver poetry collection, Dog Songs. I also plan to continue reading the first Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, which I scored from ebay after a recommendation by Tracy K at Bitter Tea and Mystery.
As usual it’s hard to tell how much you like reading! ..and writing about how much you like reading! I have lost that skill, but once had it! I think I remember when your Dad made the shelves for you! Even though you have your favorite books, you are able to read so many different things and enjoy them all ! Very impressive!
I thought I had a post about the bookshelves, and I’m sure its there somewhere, but the search terms I was using weren’t pulling up the right posts. I am grateful that I have a wide interest when it comes to reading, although it just means that I have more and more books that I will never get to!
I have the Brackett, and about half of the Schultz, plus I have all of his Cadillacs books, which I love. I just finished an anthology (post today) and am now resting to decide what’s next.
I’m wanting to add the reading of Xenozoic Tales to my mental pile for the Venture Forth Summer Reading program. Reading a graphic novel set in jungle climate with dinosaurs screams “Summer” to me. Have you read the Brackett stories? I’ve been enjoying your anthology posts. It even prompted me to look for old anthologies while in Half Price Books earlier this week and I found Seven Trips Through Time and Space edited by Groff Conklin, who I have not heard of, but the author list is great: Larry Niven, Cordwainer Smith, Frank Herbert and H.Beam Piper are four of the seven authors.
I love the ornaments on the shelf, although I did not notice them until I read the post. I am not very observant.
I can see how you would be attracted to the Leigh Brackett book. It has a lovely cover. I would like to read something by Brackett, but I think I would rather start with a full length book (or novella if she wrote them.)
Love Minus Eighty sounds very interesting.
Eventually I do need to get around to reading the Brackett collection. I’m not sure if they are all short stories or if there are some novella or novelette length works in there.
Love Minus Eighty is a great read. It is near-future so the science fictional elements are not hard to understand and the relationships in it are just great. It was on a lot of people’s best-of lists the year it came out, for good reason. Really good narration on the audio book too if you ever wanted to experience it that way. I’ve read it and listened to it.
Fascinating selection of books, I love how different your books always are. I read Fer-De-Lance a few years ago and thought it was very good. I finished two books today so my treat is to choose new books for the weekend… enjoy your weekend reading!
That is a good treat! I’m fully in support.
I ended up not getting much reading done this weekend, just a couple of chapters, but it was okay. We spent a good part of Saturday with our daughter and son-in-law celebrating her birthday, and we all watched the SpaceX launch together, which was great. Then I mowed the lawn Saturday. After church yesterday I had friends come over and we spent several hours cutting down dead trees and burning brush to get my back yard to be less of a mess. All in all, a very good productive weekend.