I love books! Old books, new books, kindle books, but mostly physical books. I love seeing books on bookshelves and pulling them off to flip through them, reading bits here and there. Skimming my favorite books over again, or re-reading a book I’ve only read once. I wonder if this trait is inherited because my mom loves books, and so do her parents. But no matter how it came, I love books.

But you wanted a tour of my bookshelves, didn’t you? Then come right this way. My room is upstairs, and though my books are not all in my room, they are all upstairs. (Unless they are being checked out.) Let’s start in the back room. This is where I teach writing classes each week, and it’s the perfect place to keep my research books just in case I need them for class.

 

On this top shelf I have a small collection of brown books from TIME/LIFE. I haven’t read them yet, but I got them at a large book sale and thought they might be interesting. They’re all about the Old West.

Hmm, my Little Brown Handbook fell over. Oh, well. Then I have a concordance (great if you’re looking for Bible names), a Dictionary of Cliches, my thesaurus, and two books of poetry. Not a lot on that shelf. But room for more books. 😀

 

This next shelf gets a little more interesting. A good section of these books are about WWI from when I wrote my first book, Home Fires of the Great War. I have a book of songs from Nova Scotia, an 1891-95 Montgomery Wards catalog. (Talk about fun!) And then some other types of books: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, The Patriot’s Handbook, The 5,000 Year Leap (which was very good!) and a collection of Cobblestone magazines. Then I have America’s History Lands, and The Confederate Spirit. Yes, I am a Southerner. 🙂 I just love the paintings in this book!

 

Under those shelves (this book shelf has 5 shelves) are my National Geographic books about places in America and things like tornadoes. Great for looking up certain parts of the country. Next is the book with a glare on it. Sorry. It is The Columbia Chronicles of American Life 1910-1992 and I highly recommend it! If you want to know fashions, music, books, plays, movies, quotes, ads, sports, etc. etc. from a given year, it has it. Plus, at the beginning of each year it gives the news headlines, and at the end it gives you a Kaleidoscope of what happened, including First Appearances. If you write historical fiction between 1910-1992, you need to have access to this book.

Next is Our Century in Pictures by LIFE. Followed by another favorite research book. Chronicle of the 20th Century. It’s fat! It’s 3 1/4 inches fat! But it covers every month from January 1900 through November 1991. Each month is a page with a calendar of events along the side and important newspaper articles and pictures from the month. It’s a totally fun book to peruse. However, if you get a copy, before you let your brothers read it, go through every page with a sharpie or some stickers. There are some pictures that need serious help!

Then I have some more books about America with newspaper articles. I love this sort of book because that’s what the American people were reading and hearing.

On the next shelf if more of the same. And then we get my World Books. I love my World Books. They are, I think, 1950s or 60s, but since most of what I look up is back then, they’re great. Besides, my grandparents house is pictured in one of them. 🙂

If there are some books on these shelves that you want to know specific titles for, just ask. It would be rather boring if all I did was list titles. 😛

And there is the first bookshelf. Whew! We’ve covered most of the heavy stuff this time. Have some chocolate, and come back for part 2 another week.

P.S. I tried to link book titles to their Goodreads page if you want to know more about the book.