Found Around the Shelves: The Simpsons

I've been meaning to write this post for ages, and the recent Every Simpsons Ever TV marathon motivated me to finally do so. We all have our fandoms, and I've been a part of The Simpsons' even before I knew what a fandom was. It's a love that's endured for about 25 years now; sometimes that number just seems crazy to me because really—where have 25 years of my life gone?!

If, like me, you're a Simpsons fan of a certain age, then you probably remember when Fox was a new network and the Simpsons were featured on The Tracey Ullman Show. Even at the age of 10, I thought those shorts were awesome, although the animation wasn't anything fancy. I also remember when the family got their very own half hour Christmas special, and shortly after that, they had their own series.

If ever there was a television show that I was obsessed with, it's this one. Through elementary school, high school, and college, it never mattered how much homework I had; I never missed a first run episode. And those were pre-DVR days! I could have recorded an episode on a VCR back then, but I made it my business to catch the show every week. In more recent times, grown up responsibilities and the convenience that is a DVR mean that I don't always catch the new episodes when they initially air, but if I'm home on Sunday night, you know what I'm watching at 8 p.m.

I can't even begin to explain how much I love this show. I mean, I have Simpsons Christmas ornaments. That's right—ornaments. Plural. I own the CDs that have been released with songs from the show. I've played the various video games they've starred in. I had a Simpsons screensaver on my computer at one point.

So it's no surprise, then, that there are some Simpsons-related books on my shelves. That giant encyclopedia-looking tome contains summaries for 20 seasons' worth of episodes, plus load of background information about each episode, including every chalkboard and couch gag. These episode guides were originally published in smaller volumes, which you can also see in the photo. With the show still going, it looks like the massive compendium will eventually need an update, which I'll obviously have to add to my collection.

I am an unabashed Simpsons nerd. I have been for a good chunk of my life and always will be. If you randomly approached me on the street and just started quoting lines from the show, I wouldn't think that was weird at all. In fact, you'd be my new best friend! The Every Episode Ever marathon was something directly out of my dreams, although I missed more episodes than I watched. *shakes fist at need to go to work and earn income for things like food* I hope the marathon becomes an annual event; I'd totally take vacation days for it, and it should be quite obvious from all the fangirling in this post that I'm not joking about that.

Found Around the Shelves: SPACE!

Finally, finally, FINALLY, I got some new bookshelves last weekend! After bemoaning the total lack of room on my existing shelves, I had the opportunity to go to Ikea last Sunday and get some new, taller ones. Assembling them had to wait until yesterday, but after living with overflowing shelves for this long, a few more days wasn't going to make a difference.

Here's a pic of the Before situation. I bought 4 of these 3 shelf bookcases a couple of years ago, back when I was just rediscovering my love of books. Needless to say, loving books fills up shelves fast, and I outgrew them. Notice the small pile on top of the right bookshelf; they were there because there was no other space for them.

Fortunately, I had an empty wall downstairs in the living room, and as much as I wasn't crazy about the idea of splitting up the books between upstairs and downstairs, there was no other space for shelves. Since the living room space was pretty large, I decided to just go for it and get 3 bookcases. Plus, I don't have to worry about decorating that wall now!

These are Ikea's Billy 6 shelf bookcases. I'd seen a lot of positive reviews for them, and I like their simple design. I originally thought they had 5 shelves, but they have 6! Getting these guys home took a bit of work; Ally and her brother Denis were awesome at loading these up into their family minivan and unloading them at my house. It's a good thing they're packaged so compactly:

I actually enjoy putting stuff together, although it's a little more challenging when the furniture is taller than I am, haha! (Which is most of the time.) These were pretty easy to assemble, and for the price, I really like the quality. Here's the finished project:

It's so nice to have shelf space again! Some of the books have been moved, but the rest will have to wait until next weekend. Assembling the bookcases took quite a bit of time, time that I otherwise would have spent on, say, writing a review for today. I'm hoping to get caught up on reviews this week; the days go by way too fast!

Found Around the Shelves: Summer Reading Memories

I had so much fun with the previous post that I did, in which I revealed my large tiny book hoarding problem by gathering all of the unread books lying on my shelves, that I've decided to do some occasional themed posts on my book collection. It's really not that big, so we'll see how many topics I can think of before I run out of books to talk about (Of course, I can always add more, but I'm trying to be good with my book buying). And yes, sometimes I have way too much time on my hands that ideas like this even pop into my head.

Since it's the middle of summer, I thought a timely subject would be books that were assigned for school to be read during summer vacation. It also sort of ties in to my previous post about the book hoarding because I still have some of these books 20 or so years later, which explains why most of them look the worse for wear:

When I moved a few years ago, I did a pretty thorough clean out of my books while packing, and quite a few titles from my old school summer reading lists got tossed. I figured that I wasn't likely to read them ever again, and I really can't say that I've been itching to reread James Agee's A Death in the Family, Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County, or Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding, among others. The books that I have kept weren't necessarily because I loved them, but for whatever reason, I just didn't want to part with them. There's also still the mystery of where my copy of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man went. I know I lent it to somebody in college, but it was never returned. That book made zero sense to me when I read it for my senior year of high school, so it's not like I was crying over it going missing, but it has given me a phobia of lending my books out that persists until this day.

I remember actually being excited to receive my first summer reading list when I went to high school orientation. Ahh—the optimism of a freshman! The following year, I wasn't quite so thrilled when those pieces of paper were handed out toward the end of May, and I absolutely dreaded the sight of them at the end of junior year. I think my favorite list is still from freshman year, when I read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Pearl, and Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The selections after that were more miss than hit. I didn't realize it at the time, but they were slowly putting a damper on my love of reading that I wouldn't break out of until I was well into adulthood. I did rather like Les Misérables, though. I only had to read the abridged version, which is why my copy in the photo is so small; the unabridged version is over 1000 pages. My cousin, Ally, owns a copy, and seriously, it could double as a makeshift weapon.

Senior year's summer reading assignment was quite a drudge because I'd chosen English as one of my concentration subjects, and I had to take two English classes that year—which meant two summer reading lists. Les Misérables was on one of them, and I think I had a bit of luck because another book was on both lists. I had to read The Bridges of Madison County that year, and why, I could never figure out because our reading diet consisted almost exclusively of classic literature. Maybe it was because Bridges was still selling copies like mad at the time, and they just wanted us to read something off the bestseller's list for a change. I had the worst time reading Madame Bovary; Emma Bovary, if you thought your ennui was unbearable, you should have tried reading about it.

I really have to laugh at that reading list now because back then, I never thought I'd get to the end of it. There were about seven books on it, and I can usually read at least that many in a month now. When I was 17, though, the last thing I wanted to do was spend my summer doing my forced reading for school. There was only one time when I had to read a book over the summer for college, Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, and that was for a special incoming freshmen event. And with that, my summers of required reading were finally over.

If there are any summer reading memories you'd like to share, whether they're happy stories or horror stories, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Found Around the Shelves: Unread Books

While reorganizing my bookshelves recently, I realized that I may have a teensy book hoarding problem. In an attempt to put off doing something more constructive with my time, I decided to take stock of how many books I've managed to accumulate without ever reading them. Why do I buy books, stick them on a shelf, and then forget about them? I don't have a very good answer for that one. Well, I do go to the library often, especially since I live so close to it, so maybe if I could stay out of there, I'd be more attentive to my books at home. Then again, maybe not. Quite a few of these were must-haves when I bought them, which makes me feel even worse about leaving them unread for so long. All of the pictured books were acquired before this year, so this little inventory doesn't take into account a few 2013 book purchases which are floating around.

The YA Pile

I bought Divergent shortly after it was released, so yes, it's been hanging around on the shelf for that long. As you can see, I also have a mini-stockpile of Melina Marchetta books to read.

The Grown-Up Pile

I was surprised to see that the adult book pile almost matched the YA stack, and that there was so much historical fiction in there.

The Classics Pile

I enjoyed Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (and LOVED the BBC miniseries adaptation with Richard Armitage as John Thornton), and wanted to check out her other works. Alas, I still haven't gotten around to these two. I've always wanted to read Henry V, but now I'm thinking that I should read Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2 first, since they're a tetralogy.

The "Owned These Before I Moved" Pile

These are some of the last books I bought as a New Yorker, and they got packed away, sent to storage for a month, and unpacked in the new house without me ever cracking them open. It's been five years since I moved, and these poor things are still waiting for me to read them.

And the Oldest Unread Book I Own Is . . .

This one. It was a Christmas gift from my parents about 25 years ago, and for whatever reason, I never read this book. Since I started blogging, I've seen Anne of Green Gables mentioned often as a favorite, so I really ought to read it, at last.

I'm planning on tackling some of these unread books as part of the upcoming Summer Lovin' Read-a-thon. I don't have a set goal in mind; I'm just going to read as many books as I can during the week, and with any luck, get quite a bit of reading done during the 24-hour reading marathon on July 6. Now all I have to do is avoid the temptation to go the library that week . . . .