Membrecesious

All listed books are books-on-shelves and have been read at least once if they have a rating. I'm going to start marking as 'culled' any that are sent on their way in the wide world to make way for newer, shinier, volumes.

From the first books I brought, there was the serious task of numbering them to be done. I think the first book was 'UFO', now long gone, but the second, 'Subb', 'SCI-FI-2', is still here and just cataloged. As the books crept along one of my metal shelves and onto another, they started picking up places bought and dates ('Planet of Exile', 'Sheerness', 277, 20/2/78) and then a year letter as they accelerated and became a whole stack ( 'The Sword and the Stallion',L16, 'Dark They Were and Golden Eyed',09/02/80 ). I started keeping a hardback notebook listing them all. Then, university came along and the books operated on a kind of feeder system where each term I brought a new bundle home to join the double rowed volumes building up.

Alas, the recording system collapsed at this point and the books inside covers are pristine from then on. I left higher education (2 or 3 times in the end) and began years of living in various flats in London, the bulk of the books now relegated to garishly coloured plastic crates in my mothers house. I had new rows of books tucked away, then a whole alternate collection really, fed by the London SF stores. I was a teacher for a while (Physics), then escaped to computing, left the South of England and came back. My income temporarily pulled ahead of spiraling book costs and the book's numbers increased as did the hints from my mother about being able to use spare rooms for people to sleep in.

I ended up in Horsham, with the crates. Finally, I also ended up in a house big enough to combine all the rows together in purpose built shelves (and also a bit of room for my wife, two children and various often doomed pets). I started alphabetising them and even managed to get to 'D' before being distracted by little things like; everything on the Internet, big flat televisions. Ten years later Asimov to Clarke is still in order but everything else is arranged in a subtle pattern which is only obvious to myself I'm afraid …

So, I was settled down, no longer able to read doorstop fantasies in one go without getting a headache and sending some books on their way in the world now and again to make room for new ones, when I caught this link to a picture of Neil Gaiman's library on the web. One thing led to another, via a few different cataloging solutions tryouts, until we're back putting the numbers in here. Can't seem to find that ISBN for 'Subb' however, so guess it's still going to be 'SCI-FI-2' ...