A crônica about bookshelves
Books have been properly stored so it's time to say 2024 has officially begun
I made a little promise to myself that this space would not go too long without a new piece of writing. Maybe not weekly, on the dot, since sometimes things happen or, most likely, I just forget about which exact day of the week I should be sending these out. And also because I said I wanted to explore other formats and contents, and I’m remembering now that some things do take longer than others, even if I’m not just caught in the whole trying-to-do-it-perfectly-and-not-doing-it-at-all cycle.
And what I mean by that is that I have a draft currently sitting and waiting for attention and for me to grab something from my shelf before it continues to grow.
So today I’m going back to the roots of this space with a short crônica, a couple of photos (because I’m a visual person), and footnote (because I can’t avoid them).
This past weekend, Life Associate and I put together a new bookshelf, something we increasingly need since last May, when books began spilling from shelves into all available surfaces (and then a bar cart purposefully set up for it). The actual assembling was a relatively smooth morning affair, especially considering everything that went around it.
We live in a small NYC apartment, which means that the “new bookshelf project” began by figuring out where a new bookshelf could be placed (we have an old, discontinued red Kallax unit that I treasure, and keeping it is unnegotiable), and then trying to find something that would fit both that space and our budget. A bit of a game of 3-D Tetris1—where instead of tetrominoes you have to deal with narrow spaces, picking which closet door to partially block, and making sure there’s still a sense of a good vibe while, at the end of the day, you’re basically building a shelves-and-books fort around your couch.
I, like many other readers out there, dream of floor-to-ceiling, custom-made bookshelves, but that is not happening now. Truth be told, even if you gave me the money to have such shelves made now, I would probably spend it on books, and then sort things out with premade furniture anyway.
Moreover: I’m actually one of those weird people who likes to assemble premade furniture. Even when there’s some blood sweat and tears involved (not the case this past weekend). Receiving an order from Ikea always comes with some fun included for me. And we have done our fair share of Ikea assembling since 2014 (see above the NYC small apartment + budget situation). I look around our home and know which pieces I have assembled by myself (including the desk that holds the computer from which I write to you), a small badge of honor that I wear with some pride.
Under different circumstances, I might have been more of a DIYer. As it is, I mostly troubleshoot things that come up and try to keep myself entertained in the process.
Back in April 2020, feeling terribly bored and horribly stuck in the dissertation, I decided to get a little creative with some postcards that we had gathered during our trips and a picture frame with a poster we didn’t care much about anymore.
It remains set as I did it back in that spring, a memento of a spur-of-the-moment project, of a little over a month of lockdown, carried from apartment to apartment.
Shelf unit assembled, put in place—a deep breath: time to actually organize the books.
Because, you see, I keep our library organized in alphabetical order.
Which, realistically, is not a very smart thing to do when you have limited space and continue to grow your book collection. Because often getting a new title means having to shuffle everything around, from A to Z.
I am proud to say that, after two days of working on this, books have mostly found their place on shelves (old and new), we have maintained the appropriate levels of vibes, and I broke no nails in the process.
Reorganizing shelves, making sure who comes next is in adequate order, is always a fun time, no matter how much I complain in the process (much like assembling Ikea furniture). It’s about touching the books and knowing them or at least where they are, about having some sense of control over these objects but also knowing that most of them remain total strangers (a fun added benefit of building a library with someone with different tastes and intellectual interests).
But doing so also brought a strange sense of nostalgia, as I went through volumes and remembered the occasion that brought them to me or thought back to when I read them (or made plans to read them).
I saw again books I annotated for my MA, during coursework for the PhD, for my dissertation—scarce volumes that have survived previous and stupid book purges, that testify to a different time and place. I found books I had forgotten about and finally put Yasmina Reza’s Art where it belongs (whereas for several months I thought I had lost it but it had just fallen behind its much thicker neighbors). It felt strange to finally break apart the neat little collection of Brazilian books I had left on our sideboard since the summer or to take all the little livres de poche I brought from France and had been stored quite snuggly in the aforementioned bar cart along with late-2023 purchases.
They have now found their place among previously and since-then purchased titles in English, a mish-mash that represents well the past decade. Books bought and gifted, recommendations, discoveries, must-reads, recent launches and all-time classics.
As I sit on the couch with my current read, coffee table jazz playing, I look around and it feels like home in more ways than one. And if going to a bookshop and losing myself in its aisles and on its shelves is one of my favorite free-time activities that involves going outside, doing so at home, in my pajamas with a cup of tea is also very much up there.
And now that the books have been organized and shelved, I can say 2024 has officially begun.
And I know which shelf to reach for so I can find that book (not Rancière’s!) and go back to that draft in progress that won’t write itself (thank goodness).
Back in the spring semester of 2020, I rediscovered Tetris and spending time making colorful rows blink then disappear was a way for me to let out some of the frustration I felt towards not being able to solve my dissertation quite the same way. Also, I’m fascinated by its history and fully recommend “The Story of Tetris” on youtube rather than the Apple+ movie.
Any reflections on bookshelves is a good one for me :)
I've established my winter 2024 piles to be read and to take to the mountains. Such a joy!