My Study

My room is lined with books. Six large bookcases hold my 'in use' library. Shelves of hardcovers and paperbacks loosely sorted into categories. The two volume 'Oxford English Dictionary' lies on the floor near my feet. It takes up too much space on the oak library table that is my desk. I need it too often to shelve it. With a small pillow on top it makes a nice low footrest. Other dictionaries and thesauruses are on a shelf that I can reach from my chair. 'Bartlett's Quotations', Partridge's dictionary of slang, 'Walker's Rhyming Dictionary', some etymological dictionaries, a biblical concordance, Brander Matthew's 'Study of Versification' sit next to a handful of style guides, the printer's 'Pocket Pal' and an assortment of XML and HTML references. On the shelf above you'll find books on information design and usability. The distinctive yellow spine of 'A Pattern Language' holds the center spot. Other reference shelves contain a complete set of Frazier's 'Golden Bough', a complete set of Sir Richard Burton's 'One Thousand Nights and a Night' with all the supplementary volumes. There is a shelf of books on New England folklore and references on farming for the novel that I'm writing, another shelf of books on linguistics, symbols and semiotics. The two shelves of poetry are overstuffed. I'll have to winnow them soon. Deacon, Pinker, Gould, Thomas, Dennett and Calvin all appear in the science and philosophy section. Three volumes of Euclid are also there beside Darwin and Warren McCulloch's 'Embodiments of Mind'. Paperback fiction is stored on its side in stacks the stacks arranged two or three deep depending on the size. From where I sit I can see a stack of Robertson Davies, another of Tom Holt, some Charles DeLint and Christopher Moore. But Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books, Matthew Lewis' 'The Monk', and a stack of Tom Sharpe's insane novels are tucked in there somewhere. My library insulates me from the cold and from the intellectual Siberia that is suburbia. The smell of paper soothes me and the tactile input of the page whether bright white, smooth pages of O'Reilly technical books or the yellowed foxed pages of my Pomey's Pantheon published in 1709 warms my soul. My closet is stuffed with my inactive library in neatly labeled boxes. In them are books that I may not need, but am unwilling to part with yet. At the bottom are boxes containing most of the 100+ software manuals that I have written, talismans of once and future (but not present) employment. Books are not the only things I have around me. Drawings and lithographs hang on what little wall space is left. Pinned to the bulletin board by my table are maps and timelines for my novel. A photo of Tom Baker as Dr. Who, and the following photos:
Jerry Lettvin and Walter Pitts talking with their collaborator Rana Pipiens.
Concert pianist and legendary teacher Theodore Lettvin gazes moodily down at the corner of a badly scanned photograph.
G.K. Chesterton accepting the gift of a dandelion from a young admirer.