Tag: project bookshelf

Project Bookshelf: Addie Dodge

A variety of books on a shelf

When winter break started this past December, my mother fixed me with a pointed look and told me that I needed to do something about The Piles. What she was referring to, of course, were the small islands of books I have accumulated and scattered around my room over the last few years. Of course, I told my mother, I will do something about The Piles. And I did—I made them into stacks instead. 

My current collection of books is a well-loved time capsule of where I have been and where I want to go. Thrice-owned and annotated poetry collections and classics for past coursework, a few choices that evidence my work in the field of psychology (spot the APA style handbook, if you can), and a variety of books that I have sought out, and continue to reach for, as a lifelong reader and striving writer. 

A stack of books sitting on a wooden table

Upon closer inspection, you’ll probably notice my affinity for Russian literature and Anne Carson, as well as my absolute distaste for sensical organization or, well, bookshelves. I do have some shelf space above the office desk in our home, however there’s something a little less archival, and a little more active, about having all these piles of books splayed around me. Maybe this is me retroactively justifying The Piles, but I enjoy the feeling of living in and amongst my books. 

Memories of friends and loved ones are held within the bindings of the books I own. Poetry collections passed between attentive hands and talked about late into the night, stories that sparked flurries of text conversations, and works given and received as gifts. For me, reading is a deeply communal activity, and as such my books are steeped in my friendships both current and past. 

A variety of books placed on a shelf

I consider myself to be an omnivorous reader, and my collection of books reflects that. I have a particular sweet spot for translated works and discovering what linguistic choices have to be made to preserve the meaning of the original text, and lately I find myself drawn to visceral writing exploring subjects related to grief and motherhood as well (I highly recommend Olga Ravn’s My Work if you’re interested in similar themes).

I will say that my problem with The Piles used to be much, much worse, though a few moves have helped to pare down my collection. These days, I try hard to frequent the library more than the bookstore, and even so, I seem to end up with a perennial pile that changes characters every few weeks when I have new holds available, little slips of paper alerting me to their due dates sticking out of the tops of said books. Yes, I am that person you see at the library struggling to carry all their holds in their arms. Progress over perfection, right?

A stack of books sitting on a wooden table

While I do my best to prioritize going to the library, my local secondhand shop has a way of beckoning to me, and so The Piles continue to grow. Although I’m not too torn up about this persisting phenomena, it comes as no surprise that when I told my mother I had done something about The Piles and proceeded to show her piles turned to stacks, she was not impressed, and reminded me that in the very near future I would have to pay for shipping for these piles turned to stacks to wherever I move this summer. Let the record show that I am aware and ready to pay for the shipping, because these piles turned to stacks are both a tether to my past, and a line cast into my future.

A white woman with short blonde hair is standing in front of a brick wall looking at the camera

Addie Dodge is a student at Colorado College pursuing a BA in Psychology with a Minor in English. She is a writer currently working as an editor for her college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and is also a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter in Colorado. She fills her free time with hiking in the mountains and lots of reading. 

Project Bookshelf: Kenli Doss

A shelf of actor-edition plays, arranged by color.

I consider myself a professional word consumer. I consume news articles with my morning coffee. I snack on books and poems and stories throughout the day. I spend most of my working hours with my nose pressed firmly in the crease between two pages. I’m also a collector. I forage for these sweet things. I catch my favorite parcels with words and pages and spines, and I store them in my home like jarred prototypes: physical reminders of the metaphysical worlds I’ve visited.

So, naturally, when Sundress prompted me to write about what’s on my bookshelf, the first thought was, “Which shelf?” I bumbled from one bookcase to another looking for inspiration, and, when I eventually found my answer, it wasn’t tucked between Frankenstein and 10 Minute Einstein on a shelf of paper and ink. No, I found the inspiration I was seeking, my panacea, my muse incarnate in the form of a small plastic disk dusted with decades of memories, not a book but a DVD.

Pagemaster (1994) was the film that launched my obsession with all things books. From reading to writing to dreaming of swallowing whole pages, this film sparked the interest that created that proverbial itch for words I hope I never outgrow.

“Are you fiction or non-fiction?”

Adventure, Pagemaster

Unlike Pagemaster‘s tiny hero Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) who faces horror, adventure, and fantasy on the shelf, I have non-fiction to contend with, and a lot of it. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the odd fantasy novel here and there, but the real-life science, art, and philosophy? That’s where my collection really shines.

A cluttered black bookshelf. A hanging plant in a blue pot can be seen in the corner, and a disco ball hangs from the pot to the lower left, where more books, a green vase, and a lipstick plant sit.

The non-fiction writers generally invited to my shelf include your typical bunch of scientists and philosophers: Marx, Camus, Sartre, Einstein, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Okay, that last one is new, but his book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry got me through twelve-hour days in college theatre. Besides the scholarly books and baubles, there is also a handful of 19th century gardening books found at an estate sale in Tuscaloosa. Then, there’s the inevitable section for the betterment of my soul, including such editions as Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America by Linda Villarosa and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Each of these books has served as a drop of paint in the mural of my imagination, and I hope the trove only grows.

“You really are a classic.”

Fantasy, Pagemaster

Much like Long John Silver in his search for Treasure Island, I am on my own adventure: a search for something sweeter, shinier, and more impressive. And, like Richard Tyler, I found my gold in the books that beckoned from the shelf, specifically the so-called “classics.”

Jane Austen wrote my soul with edits made by the Brontë sisters. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is as integral to my heart as any blood vessel, and it would be wrong not to mention such a testament to my mind as a romantic. On my shelf, she’s surrounded by Vonnegut, Poe, Gaskell, Alcott, and Shakespeare. Beside Pride and Prejudice sits my copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare as ruler of my soul. These are my treasures. This is my gold.

“Are you sure that swizzle stick of yours is working right?”

Adventure, Pagemaster

Consuming books isn’t all about reading, and I dedicate a large portion of my study time to annotations. In my head, a book gains more value when a reader scribbles down their thoughts, concerns, and objections in the margins. I would much rather receive any old, used copy with pen marks and highlights and penciled-in exclamations than a stiff-spined, fresh-paged edition. Where’s the soul? Thus, I scribble and encourage others to scribble. The world would be a happier place with more scribblers.

A black bookshelf filled with books. In the foreground, a purple copy of Little Women is stacked on The Gilded Years, also purple. A pumpkin figurine occupies the bottom right.

Toward the end of Pagemaster, after Richard Tyler escapes the murderous dragon and makes it safely to the exit sign, he wants to know what’s going on. He knows the Pagemaster is in control, and he demands an explanation. The Pagemaster explains to young Richard Tyler that if he’d never stepped foot in the library he “never would have found the courage to face [his] own fears.”

“In this very room waiting to strike are forces of evil.”

Dr. Jeckel, Pagemaster

My fears are the feelings of anxiety around what I call the four horsemen of the failed career: Plagiarism, Failure, Dullness, and Rejection. I, too, slay dragons. Only my proverbial fire-breathing monster takes the form of anxiety-induced writer’s block. So, when I find myself glued to the keyboard, fingers stiff and unmoving, brain backfiring, I look to the shelf. Those flimsy pieces of cardstock inked in words and phrases and ideas, they hold the cure. Like Richard Tyler, these treasures offer me a ride out of the beast’s gigantic belly: out of the writer’s block stupor, and onto the page.

Which, at last, brings me to my answer, or as precise an answer as I can give, anyway. What’s on my bookshelf? Hundreds of years of ink and words and treasures of all shapes, sizes, and genres. What’s on my shelf? A glowing lightbulb: my secret to slaying dragons.

A white woman with blonde hair wearing a black turtleneck stands before a blurred background of trees.

Kenli Doss holds a BA in English and a BA in Theatre-Performance from Jacksonville State University. She is a freelance writer and actress based out of Alabama, and she spends her free time painting scenes from nature or writing poetry for her mom. Ken’s works appear in Something Else (a JSU literary arts journal), Bonemilk II by Gutslut Press, Snowflake Magazine, The Shakespeare Project’s Romeo and Juliet Study Guide and A Midsummer Night’s Dream Study Guide, and The White Cresset Arts Journal.

Project Bookshelf: Annie Fay Meitchik

A photo of a book with an orange cover titled "I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf" at Powell's Books in Portland.

In many ways, what I consider to be my bookshelf is amorphous, shared, and exists in numerous locations. The majority of books that have shaped me awaited my discovery during silent reading time in my elementary school classrooms or on library shelves. I love books for the way they teach empathy and make knowledge accessible. My passion for books is deeply connected to the sense of peace I find when entering libraries. These institutions represent to me equal access to information and serve as reminders that art and literature are so deeply valuable that we’ve collectively ensured that they are free and available to everyone.

My bedroom is decorated with books—piled neatly on the floor, stacked on shelves by color, and covering the top of my piano. A lot of the books in my home are relics from my childhood: dog-eared copies of The Babysitter’s Club, well-loved Little Critter books, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and my prized edition of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

As I read well over 100 books every year, I acquire the vast majority of them from public libraries, so, I do not own many of my favorites. However, I do keep an evolving list of my recommendations on the homepage of my portfolio website. I have a special gift for matching people with the right books and enjoy sharing my personal collection with friends and family—Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket has traveled 3,000 miles from my shelf and back.

A photo of three books stacked on top of each other with black spines. The books (from top to bottom) are: "The Decameron Project" compiled by The New York Times Magazine, "The Fran Lebowitz Reader" by Fran Lebowitz, and "Just Kids" by Patti Smith.

What I find so wonderful about books is their ability to be shared and their lack of a need for ownership. While there are a handful of books I enjoy owning and rereading—The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Little Weirds by Jenny Slate—the majority of books I’ve loved float in and out of libraries, gaining something magical and intangible with each new reader. So much of what I enjoy about reading is the sense of belonging I feel sharing an experience, a narrative, with strangers who I may cross paths with someday to bond over a favorite author, quote, or story.

Eleven books on a library shelf.
A black and white photo of a woman, the author of this post.

Annie Fay Meitchik is a writer and visual artist with her BA in Creative Writing from The New School and a Certificate in Children’s Book Writing from UC San Diego. Through a career in publishing, Annie aims to amplify the voices of marginalized identities while advocating for equality and inclusivity in art/educational spaces. Her work has been published by Matter Press, 12th Street Literary Journal, and UNiDAYS. To learn more, please visit: www.anniefay.com. 

Project Bookshelf: Robin LaMer Rahija

A photo of books, including Nox by Anne Carson.

Every book, everywhere, all the time. I read several books at once, depending on what room of my apartment I’m in. There are bedside books, living room books, bathroom books. Endless audio books that never show up on the shelves.

I have a lot of poetry. Anne Carson is one of my favorites. I love her translations of Sappho and Autobiography of Red, which I read a long time ago when I was still pretending I didn’t want to be a writer.

I have even more fiction. I can’t remember who said that artists never admit who their real influences are. It would be just too embarrassing. I’m owning up to reading more fiction than poetry, despite calling myself a poet. I’ve read Wittgenstein’s Mistress so many times. It’s my emotional support book. I had to get a second copy after I spilled sunscreen all over the first one. It’s not exactly a traditional beach read, but I kept it and still open it sometimes for the olfactory memory of reading it at Folly Beach.

A photo of books, including Wittgenstein's Mistress, by David Markson.

Everything I ever published as the editor of Rabbit Catastrophe Press is collected together here. It only takes up half a shelf. That half a shelf is a decade of my life. It was the most fun I ever had.

A photo of books, including Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson.

I also love this bin of zines I’ve collected over the years at festivals and books tours in basements and abandoned warehouses. Much has been said about the subversive nature of zines. I believe they contain the most experimental and interesting writing because they’re not (as) tied to the monetization of art. People can write in them what they need to write.

A photo of zines.

The last time I moved, it became clear I had TOO MANY BOOKS. I did a big pare down and gave myself a challenge: buy no books for a year. Instead, I used the library and had an elaborate network of borrowing books from people. I made exceptions if a friend put out a book (you have to support your friends) and if I went to a reading for someone on a book tour (working writers need gas money). I mostly rose to the challenge, and even though I have fewer books now, I think I look at, talk about, run a hand over, and browse through my bookshelves more than I used to. They are filled with books I love by the people I love.

Robin LaMer Rahija (she/her) did her MFA in poetry at the University of Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Puerto Del Sol, FENCE, Guernica, and elsewhere. She is an Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications. She loves books, trees, and Excel documents.

Project Bookshelf: Jillian A. Fantin

A yellow board book propped up on a brown bookshelf. The book reads "The Wonder Book of Clowns" in black and red block letters. The cover illustration is of a bald clown with white face paint, a big red prosthetic nose, a black and red painted smile, and a stuck out tongue.

When people come to visit, they always tend to say a variation of two things in the same sequence:

Wow, that’s a lot of books. Have you read them all?

and

How do you sleep with that clown staring at you?

I love answering those questions, though sometimes it gets old convincing people that clowns* and I get on quite well. When you actually take a look inside this 1955 board book, you find it to be filled with amusing little quatrains bent on explicating the different ways various clowns use their physical bodies to produce laughter. Yes, The Wonder Book of Clowns is a children’s book, a product of a time when clowns—both as a concept and a vessel—functioned as a repository of/for humor. However juvenile, this thirty-five cent picture book serves as a reminder of the brilliant worlds that literature opens for exploration.

Although I recall a number of books from my childhood, I remember most of them all together in a big blob of language that encouraged my continued exploration of the literary arts. I do remember reading, however, one poem in one story in the November/December 2007 issue of American Girl Magazine: “Snow Angel.” The story is quite simple, with one sister plagiarizing another sister’s old poetry assignment, getting in too deep with the lie, and eventually coming clean and writing her own poem and gaining a new perspective on herself and her creative abilities. But that poem. That poem! Simply titled “A Christmas Acrostic,” the story’s central poem cemented itself to my heart and fascinated me to no end. Poems could spell words with their lines? Poems could invoke the senses? Poems could be written in color? Already armed with the power of language in stories, my nine-year-old self now recognized that the abilities of language extended beyond the words themselves.

An upward view of a bookshelf with books stacked both vertically and horizontally on top of each other. A porcelain "Pierrot" doll sits on the shelf, with a purple silk jumpsuit with white pom poms and a white ruff.

That recognition encouraged me to search out poetry that used language holistically and artistically. Rather than words static on a page, the words on the page had to move, glow, invoke the senses. To encourage thought, make me laugh, make me angry. To make me. The frenetic nature of my new craving for poetry reflects itself in the kitsch and stacks of books organized in an outwardly haphazard yet carefully tender abandon. One of the highlights from my bookshelf is Derrick Harriell’s Stripper in Wonderland, an intimate exploration of time and new fatherhood in the event of birth. The book itself serves as a moment in time, a memory of the day Harriell and I talked about poetry over tacos with other poets and some of my professors. His poetry struck me in a similar way as David Bowie’s Hunky Dory: a self-contained world of thought shown sensorially through lyric. Once I read Harriell, I couldn’t stop the force that is poetry. My bookshelf gained lots of new friends to hold, plus another bookshelf to its left to share the weight.

A view of a bookshelf with horizontal stacks of books and some vertically stacked books on the far right side. There is an instant camera in its pink case resting on the shelf.

Electricity in the form of CAConrad’s While Standing In Line For Death ran throughout my entire body, and the book that joined my 2019 hoard eventually leading me to a formal practice. Marilyn Hacker’s Presentation Piece and Joyelle McSweeney’s Toxicon and Arachne brought me in and out of bodies, of grief and of relationships; Johannes Göransson’s PILOT (“JOHANN THE CAROUSEL HORSE”) and Kim Hyesoon’s Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream revealed what happens when language is allowed to ebb and flow beyond the boundaries often placed on the written word; Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hô Xuân Huong introduced me to the erotic and often humor of a short sensorial poetics; and Ava Hoffman’s LOVE POEMS/smallness studies punched me in the face and forced my gaze upon the abilities of poetry to disintegrate structures of power and assert itself into new bodies that ask us to tag along rather than afford us any control.

I suppose it’s time for me to answer those questions from the start, though I think you already know the answers I will provide:

Yes, that is a lot of books. I don’t know if I’ll make it through all of them, but I’m certainly going to let the books that need me take me where I need to go.

and

It’s not the clown that prevents my sleep. It’s the excitement of tomorrow’s poetry that makes me a restless bedmate.

*NOTE: I would certainly be remiss to ignore the United States’ instances of clownery, past and present, used for racist caricature and the maintenance of oppression. Clowns in concept, history, and practice exist for multiple purposes, and I wholly and actively do not support any instances of clownery for the purposes of systemic racism, harmful stereotyping, and the mockery of marginalized communities.

Surrounded by blurred-out houses, fences, and grass, the author is shown from the waist up in a black compression tank with a gold septum ring and a gold nostril hoop. Their right arm contains a number of black and grey tattoos visible, including fuchsia flowers, an American Traditional snake, and an envelope with a heart seal. They have a medium-brown, wavy mullet, dark thick eyebrows, and are looking straight at the camera with a blank stare.

Jillian A. Fantin (they/them) is a poet with roots in the American South and north central England. They are a 2021 Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Poet Fellow, a 2020 Jefferson County Memorial Project Research Fellow, and the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of RENESME LITERARY. Jillian received BAs in English and Political Science with an emphasis in Political Theory from a small university in Birmingham, Alabama, and an MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in Poetry and a graduate minor in Gender Studies from the University of Notre Dame. Their writing appears or is forthcoming in American Journal of Poetry, Spectra Poets, Barrelhouse, and poetry.onl, among others.

Project Bookshelf: Solstice Black

A row of books sit on an oak bookshelf with a crystal in front of them.

The house I grew up in could be considered a library, as, legally, one must only have 500 books to be so named. But, more than legality, this house feels like a library, with many handmade bookshelves draped over the family wall under a vaulted ceiling and other shelves filling the dining room, the office, the living room. Everyone has their own bookshelves in their room, yet still the occasional pile pervades every surface. Daydreaming is encouraged, fanciful thinking embraced. I suppose it comes as no surprise, then, that I grew into an artist and writer, such daydreams fueling my work and public libraries becoming my beloved safe space.

Textbooks sit on a red bookshelf.

I’ve always consumed novels at a gobbling pace the moment they hook my attention. I must have read at least half the fiction in both this house and my section of the library, and still greet my favorites like old friends. But it wasn’t until the pandemic put a temporary end to my Village Books and library visits that I began to expand my taste through poetry, feminist essays, anthropology, and more.

A row of books sit on an oak bookshelf with a small vase of flowers.

When I began college around the beginning of the pandemic, I was introduced to the true expanse of literature, and it lit a fire in me to explore. I’d read poetry before, as the daughter of an English major. But when I began college, I saw the possibilities of the genre and it changed everything. I went head-over-heels for Joy Harjo, Chen Chen, Jane Wong, and so many others. I started looking into feminist essays for assignments and was met with Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, and Judith Butler. I broadened what types of fiction I read and by whom, and found poetry on women, on bodies, on society, on complicated ways of living. I learned I was bisexual after reading a queer novel. And it was these works that forever altered the way I see myself and the world I live in, and the way I see poetry and the people who write it.

Books sit on a black bookshelf with two colorful rocks in front of them.

So I feel that, in a very immediate way, books built me up. For me, they widened the scope of what was possible in myself and in the world. Of course, having some intense effect on me wasn’t a requirement for my favorite books. Many of my favorites remain fantasy adventure novels, and those, too, live in pride of place on my shelves or make a comforting presence by my bedside, such as my childhood favorites and signed copies of Tamora Pierce books, the books that inspired my childhood adventures. Others don’t live on my bookshelf but remain favorites nonetheless, such as the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh. The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan, while perhaps not a favorite, also takes pride of place. Perhaps a requirement as an artist, I also have a collection of art and other instructional books, many living near my paints. My bookshelf itself has become an art piece, showcasing art, crystals, family photos, and treasures I’ve collected.

Thus, I feel that this art piece of a bookshelf has come to partially represent who I am. Occasionally chaotic and confusing, colorful, holding rocks in every pocket, perhaps fanciful, and full of deep ideas and poetry.

A young white woman with octagon-shaped glasses and very short bleached hair stands in the foreground. They wear a lacy top and a button up sweater with a blue collar. Greenery is in the background.

Solstice Black (she/they) is a queer poet and novelist living in the Pacific Northwest. They are currently undertaking a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chautauqua, A Forest of Words, and The Fantastic Other, among others. They hope to pursue an MFA in creative writing and a BFA in visual art in the next few years. Her cat is both her greatest joy and torment.

Project Bookshelf: Crysta Montiel

I’ve scattered parts of my bookshelf all over Toronto. Sometimes, on random weekend trips to the west end, I visit local book stores to window shop. I always tell myself that I won’t buy anything, but the city’s talented booksellers tempt me with rare gems. Gems that I have an unfortunate habit of losing.

As Murphy’s law famously states, “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Sometimes I forget my books in transitory places—buses, trains, and planes. Other times, I forget my books at friends’ places, vowing to retrieve them until the statute of limitations finally applies. Either way, I suppose that every book I’ve ever lost goes through a long cycle of finding, trading, borrowing, gifting, and re-gifting. I’m a firm believer in the idea that a book comes to life again every time a new pair of eyes reads it.

Because I’m so giving, and not at all because of my tendency to misplace books, my personal collection remains fairly small. Above my desk, I have a shelf of academic books on English literature, poetry, and philosophy. I keep these on hand because they’re writing resources that I flip through and cite whenever I need to. On an adjacent wall, I have a shelf stacked with fiction, which is mostly untouched because I’ve read them all.

Libraries are a magical place where people breathe life into literature over and over again, which is why I gravitate toward them. Toronto Public Library has annual book sales, where they sell donated books and books from their collections. All the profits are used to support library programs, so it’s basically guilt-free shopping. My most prized books are the ones that I picked up there in my youth.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman was my first coming-of-age book. The protagonist, an orphan boy, is raised by an ensemble of quirky graveyard monsters. Imagine Boyhood (2014) if it was a dark whimsy children’s book. Likewise, I felt seen by Adam Green’s Satsuma Sun-Mover, a comedic tale about a Cambridge philosophy student caught between two warring factions: the Hegelians and the Positivists.

It’s strange to verbalize my love for these books because the feeling is so intimate. For me, the select few books that I keep in my collection are the ones that I’ve attached to core memories.

And, yes, I’ve alleviated my forgetfulness by using an e-reader for most books I buy today. I like being able to highlight and save quotes, bookmark pages, and ctrl+f search for words. The screen also brightens at night if I ever want to read in the dark.

On my e-reader, I probably have over 5000 books now. Even though it’s just a tablet and the books are digital, I like to envision my personal collection looks something like Jorge Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel.” This romantic image makes me feel a lot better about having a collection scattered over the city with books I can’t actually see.

Crysta Montiel is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto in Canada, where she studies English Literature and Philosophy. She previously worked as an editorial intern at Ayesha Pande Literary Agency. When Crysta’s not digging through treasure troves of queries, she’s completing her Criterion Collection bucket list and playing with her cat. 

Project Bookshelf: Marah Hoffman

For my birthday, my roommate got me a personalized stamp that proclaims, “From the library of Marah Robyn Hoffman.” In the stamp’s center is a simple bee (I have been nicknamed Mother Nature for the magnetic pull I seem to have on small, winged creatures), and around it are leaves and petals. I gasped at the gift’s beauty. In its intricate me-ness, I saw how well my friend pays attention.  

The stamp is a gift for the future. At twenty-two, I do not own a bookshelf, let alone a library. My books, like a child’s stuffed animals, often travel back and forth from various dwellings, mainly from my dorm room to my parents’ house but also to my boyfriend’s row home in Philadelphia, to the beach house we visit every summer, and to my grandfather’s hunting cabin in the deep mountains of Pennsylvania, far from cell service and suburbia.  

Books are my constant companions. I have been known to, on occasion, bring three books to an outing, so I may read according to my mood. On one particularly uneventful trip to the mountains, I inhaled three-and-a-half books. I still reminisce about that vacation fondly.  

“My bookshelf” or, in other words, the obnoxious stacks populating my room, is becoming increasingly obscure and diverse. On the lower rungs of these literary ladders used to climb to other worlds are The Box Car Children, The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson. But the higher your eyes scan, you see how my interests have evolved beyond the domain of dominant pop culture. You may discover Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello, a collection of sixteen essays ruminating on famous animals, or Bluets by Maggie Nelson, a book full of pieces of varying genres each considering the color blue.  

This Christmas, both my boyfriend and my sister complained that buying me presents was like playing a scavenger hunt. My Christmas list was 70% books, but many of them could not be easily found online or in the small, independent bookstores my sister frequents.  

My liberal arts education in the humanities is the culprit. I used to know only fiction, but now, thanks to my professors and my position on my college’s literary magazine, I am acquainted with the existence of prose poems, flash fiction, micro fiction, creative nonfiction, personal essays, braided essays, and hybrid essays. I have become more voracious because I know the vast voices I have yet to hear.  

When I consider my bookshelf, my brain becomes a chorus of these different voices making similar, resonant sounds.  

I hear my dad reading my first favorite books to me as a child snuggled against him on our small couch. These storybooks no longer exist in a physical place; instead, they rest on the shelves of my mind. Current reads echo these old stories. The themes have not fully changed despite their placement in new genres.  

My bookshelf exists in its full capacity only in my mind. Even when I find a true bookshelf for my room after graduation, and even when I someday, hopefully, have an office/library in my own home, my bookshelf will foremost stand in my imagination, holding stories whose names I may forget but whose contents inform future passion.  

Marah Hoffman is a senior double major in English and creative writing at Lebanon Valley College in rural Pennsylvania. Within her campus’s lively literary community, she is a writing tutor, mentor for prospective and new students, co-poetry editor for their literary magazine, and president of her college’s International English Honors Society chapter. Marah enjoys reading classic and contemporary literature. She has written poetry since she was twelve but has lately found herself wandering the realm of creative nonfiction, particularly personal essays. Besides being a bookworm, Marah is an avid runner. She is a member of LVC’s cross country and track teams. When Marah graduates, she hopes to find a position that allows her to continue pursuing her passion for books.  

Project Bookshelf: Kathryn Davis

I’ve never had a proper bookshelf. 

Late in the July between my kindergarten and first-grade years, when my big brother loaned me his favorite book on the face of the earth—Nate the Great Goes Down In the Dumps—I didn’t need a bookshelf. My picture books were content to live (albeit overflowing) in the big wicker basket beside my bed, and anyway, I’d need to return Sam’s copy of Nate the Great when I’d finished. It wasn’t a signed copy or anything, but he’d added some drawings of his own that he might want to revisit down the road. And anyway, it was a loan—NOT a present. Okay? 

Soon after I’d torn through Nate (and safely returned it to my brother’s library under threat of noogies), I picked up Because of Winn Dixie, Charlotte’s Web, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Anniversary Boxed Set. Around the same time, my dolls went hungry. They moved out of their dollhouse, which my mother had built (and wallpapered) herself for my fourth birthday. My dolls cleared out their furniture, their clothes, their pets, and skipped town. So my books moved into my pink-roofed, five-bedroom dollhouse. The smaller books fit well into the bathroom and the nursery; the larger ones were stacked in the living room, the master bedroom. The oddly-proportioned ones were cast off into the doll house’s attic, angled and leaning into the pitch of the roof. 

My first car, the car my father used to usher my mother to the hospital the day I was born, was a white Jeep Cherokee Sport. It had this knit heather-grey interior—and seat pockets on the back of both the driver’s and passenger’s seats. I’d moved on to slightly-heftier books by the time I learned to drive; Speak, The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Bluest Eye. I brought books with me everywhere. I planned ahead, loaded my Jeep’s seat pockets with books I meant to read soon, books I’d read again, and took them with me wherever I went. When I blew the engine on the Jeep—on the expressway three miles from home—the back-of-seat pockets were blown out and sagging from the years they’d spent stuffed full of my library. I cleared out the car so my uncle could sell its shell down at his salvage yard, and I pulled books out of the pockets in stacks. Empty, the pockets held the shape of the books: re-formed to hold hardcovers instead of gum wrappers and ice scrapers, as the car’s designers had intended. 

My college dorm room came equipped with a bed, a small dresser, and a desk—as a loan—NOT a present. Okay? My writing professors sent me to buy dozens of collections and anthologies and craft books and implored me to keep them forever. Still, without a proper bookshelf, and with a backpack (and, for that matter, a back) that boasted only a finite load-bearing capacity, I was left to stacking. I stacked my books on the floor: On either side of my dresser. Along the foot of my bed. As a makeshift side table to the right of my desk. Each semester, I got more books, and my stacks got more precarious. A friend once compared my stacks of books to those stacks people make with rocks alongside rivers—except my stacks were not especially harmful to wildlife.

Now, I own a house that bears a striking resemblance to my childhood home (and very little resemblance to my pink-roofed dollhouse), but I still don’t have a bookshelf. Don’t get me wrong—large portions of hutches, console tables, nightstands, empty corners of rooms—serve as homes for my books. They’re the cornerstone of my house’s interior design; they’re spread all around, scaling the fireplace, holding up candles and framed photos, a couple dozen in every room. 

I like it this way. I like living amidst a poorly-filed library that I can access at every moment, in any room or on any surface or corner. I like that I can accidentally pick up a collection or novel and read the whole thing, just because it was there. Books are full of beautiful things that are meant to be happened upon, held onto, carried with us. It makes sense to me, not having a real bookshelf, because it means that books are everywhere, too great and necessary to ever really put away.

Kathryn Davis is a writer and editor from Michigan. She graduated in 2018 from Grand Valley State University, where she studied Creative Writing with an emphasis in Fiction, and served as editor-in-chief of the university’s literary journal, fishladder. You can find her work in Potomac Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere—or follow her on Twitter @kathrvndavis.

Project Bookshelf: Victoria Carrubba

I have always believed that a reader’s bookshelf is an extension of who they are. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then a reader’s collection of books reflects their innermost feelings, interests, and aspirations. Each book I have read throughout my life has had an impact on me in some way; whether I loved the novel or hated it, they have all shaped me into the reader and person I am today.

When I was born, my mother bought me a dresser with two shelves attached to it. While limited, these shelves held some of the most influential books I read as a child, novels that sparked my love for reading. Goodnight Moon was the first book my mother bought for me as a baby, and I still own the slightly damaged book today because of how much I loved it. I would ask my mom to read it to me every night before bed, never growing bored with the story despite knowing exactly how it would end.

In elementary school, my board books were replaced with middle-grade chapter books. More than half of one shelf was dedicated to the Magic Treehouse books, the first series I read and loved as a child. The remainder of my shelves were filled with A Series of Unfortunate Events, 39 Clues, and Percy Jackson. Elementary school is when I became an avid reader; I would carry a book with me wherever I went, and I would spend hours reading each day. Unsurprisingly, I read each book on my shelves numerous times, until, eventually, my dad bought me three more shelves so I could expand my book collection. He took me to my small town’s indie bookstore every Saturday to buy a new book, and by the next time I went the following week, I had already finished it.

Then, when I was fourteen, my parents and I redid my childhood bedroom for my birthday. With the renovation came my beloved floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The baby dresser and elementary shelves were replaced with four bookcases that span the entire wall; my own personal library right in my bedroom. I spent hours organizing my books when they were installed, deciding to group them by genre and sort them by which spines looked best together. Today, I still organize my books this way, though I am less methodical with the process. By the end of high school, my bookshelves were almost completely filled with YA fantasy and contemporary books, the two genres I loved the most during my teenage years.

Now, going into my fourth year of college, my bookshelves are filled to the brim and organized in a pattern that resembles Tetris more than anything. I have shifted gears from YA to adult, and my favorite genre is literary fiction (though I still go back to my roots and read the occasional fantasy). In addition to my fiction books, I have a couple nonfiction books about specific interests or people that I like, textbooks from my college literature classes, and poetry collections that I find beautiful. Some of the most special books in my collection, though, are The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (my favorite book, the first I ever cried to while reading), the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan (the only series from my early childhood that I still keep on my shelves, three of which are signed), Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (the first personalized, signed book I got and the first book I truly saw myself in), and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (given to me by my grandmother).

However, all of my books, read or unread, hold a special place in my heart. Each book I have read, bought, or received is significant to me because I will always remember the person I was when I put it on my shelves.

Victoria Carrubba is a senior English Publishing Studies student at Hofstra University. She is currently a tutor at her university’s writing center and a copyeditor for The Hofstra Chronicle. She has also worked on her university’s literary magazines, Font and Growl, and was previously a fiction editor for Windmill Journal. Outside of work, she can be found reading, dancing, or drinking chai.