2007.06.17
Top shelf of a bookshelf
I always find it interesting when I look at what someone has placed on the top of their bookshelf. I’m not sure why. There could be an in-depth psychological reason on why we put the books we have on the top shelf as apposed to other shelves. If there is I don’t know it. I like to think that the material people like rises to the top.
On my shelf I have:
- The Master and Commander Series (20 books) by Patrick O’Brian
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
- The National Dream and The Last Spike by Pierre Berton
- Rebel Faye by B. & J.C. Hendee
- Pragmatic Unit Testing by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
- Leading a Software Development Team by Richard Whitehead
- Interface Oriented Design by Ken Pugh
- Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen
- A manual for my camcorder
- World of Warcraft Game Manual
I guess this sampling would say I enjoy fiction more than any other genre, and I have a strong interest in computers. What does your shelf say about you?
Thomas Grey said,
June 19, 2007 at 9:52 am
The top of my bookshelf is filled with old telephone books. I’m not too sure what that says.
Mark said,
June 23, 2007 at 5:28 pm
My bookshelves are stuffed full of DVDs. On the top shelf, I’ve got all 10 Star Trek movies, the complete series of Shadow Raiders, the 4 films that revitalized Disney animation in the early 1990s (Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, and the Lion King), the boxed set of both Fantasia films, Independence Day and Tron.
BillR said,
July 20, 2007 at 3:26 pm
If you like Jared Diamond check out ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed’ - recommended.
Geek Smithology » A Note on My Bookshelf said,
February 23, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[…] It was awhile ago now, but the Rontologist put up an entry about his top shelf and was hoping to probe the deep Freudian secrets that lie beneath our own top shelf decisions. Mine are based on the fact that my top shelf is shorter than the second shelf, so certain choices are essentially forced. I don’t want to know what kind of complex that may represent. There are currently six full bookshelves in my house. Three of those are in my office. I will choose the one behind me because it gets the most consistent use. […]