What is on your Golden Shelf?

When Kim and I attended a signing for Eoin Colfer (pronounced "Owen") and his latest Artemis Fowl book in 2010, he talked of a "golden shelf". It is that peculiar notion of items encountered at a certain period of one's life, often during youth, which remain favorites for the rest of their lives regardless of other shifts in taste through maturity or criticism (even justified) by others. These can be music, foods, television shows, or movies, but he was mostly talking about books. I find that this explains the appeal for certain items that have a burning nostalgia that causes people to want to seek items from their youth.

However, as I was looking for a web page that referred to this principle of his, I encountered this blog entry which relates to the Golden Proportion of the Greeks and Italian Renaissance (at least that is what I learned from Donald Duck in the Mathmagicland film). Someone has applied this to the Ikea Billy bookcases. Since these are a unit of measurement in the LT physical dimensions, perhaps some people put their most prized books on this "golden shelf" without realizing it.

http://billybokhyllan.blogspot.com/2011/05/golden-shelf-discovered-in-stockholm....

What is on your "Golden Shelf", either kind?

James

My Doc Savage and my Rick Brant books would be on my "golden shelf."

Golden shelf (1st type - "items encountered at a certain period of one's life, often during youth, which remain favorites"):

Against the Fall of Night - Arthur C. Clarke
When the Legends Die - Hal Borland
Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Watership Down - Richard Adams

I know there are others, but they come to my mind at a time of their choosing.

Os.

Edited to clarify which type of 'Golden Shelf'

Stalky & Co. by Kipling
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Fairy Caravan by Beatrix Potter
Shadow Castle by Marian Cockrell
Greenwillow by B.J. Chute
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Working from memory here, but I am sure there are others.

Interesting: what I actually have on that eye-level shelf in the most prominent spot in my study - and as far as I can remember, what I've always had there - are a few essential poetry anthologies (e.g. the Quiller-Couch and Helen Gardner editions of the Oxford book of English verse and Kenneth Allott's Penguin Contemporary verse), some basic reference books (Fowler's Modern English Usage, Roget's Thesaurus, Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer(*) etc.), the old Open University Science data book, some dictionaries, and a Bible.

The counterpart shelf in my office at work is also mostly dictionaries and reference books for my job, plus a few waifs and strays like Plain English Campaign booklets, Very good, Jeeves, Horowitz & Hill The art of electronics, Alice in Wonderland and Facts from figures (two books that tell you everything you really need to know about maths???).

I do have a shelf in a more public spot in my living room at home with nice-looking Folio Society editions and oversize art books, but I tend to think of that as decoration rather than part of my library.

If I had to imagine what I'd put on a Golden Shelf, I'd probably come to a selection similar in flavour to 3 and 4, although probably omitting the Tolkien and science-fiction but including some Arthur Ransome and P.G. Wodehouse.

(*)A book I haven't opened in at least thirty years, come to think of it!

That blog is a bit confusing, what they call the 'fourth' shelf I'd call the 'fifth', and even then it's below eye-level for me - Billy bookcases must be taller (and I'm only 5' 9").

Having said that, I was slightly surprised to find that the eye-level shelf on my most convenient bookcase is practically full of authors listed as 'favorites' on my profile: mostly Shakespeare paperbacks and Dorothy L. Sayers, with the odd Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen. I would have been tempted to say that was just random chance, but I suppose there was something subconscious going on - especially as I have to bend for my row of reference books.

I can't think of a single book where I've carried the enthusiasm from childhood to the present; but, as a child, one of my favourites was a copy of A. A. Milne's play Toad of Toad Hall and then I discovered The Wind in the Willows in early adulthood (I'm 61 now) and I've had a nostalgic and uncritical love for it ever since - does that count?

As a child, I was also really fond of a novel called The Eye of Kish, by Kenneth Ireland, long since disappeared from my life, and I've always had a bit of nostalgia for that book in particular. Don't really know why. I spotted a number of copies recently while browsing AbeBooks and eBay and I've a yen to get one. Trouble is, I'm a bit scared as these things have a way of being a bit of a disappointment - not quite what one remembered. Perhaps it's better to keep the nostalgia.

ETA - For anyone who doesn't know, Toad of Toad Hall is a dramatisation of parts of The Wind in the Willows.

My shelves don't remain stable enough for me to really have a "golden" shelf in that sense - I am constantly re-shelving and getting new shelves in hope of actually fitting them all on shelves somehow. And my bookshelves aren't exactly Billys, either.

The closest thing to that I have is a shelf that until last week held my collection of Dover nonfiction paperbacks (sorted by color) but now has a miscellany of recently-read and recently-purchased fiction. (And the shelf by my bed, which is my, um, 'currently reading' shelf.)

As for the other sense... I went through my LT account and pulled a list of those out awhile back, but it came out, uh, quite long. If I had to limit it to, say, ten, I'd probably go with, hmm:

Flatland
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Matilda
The Wounded Sky
An Encyclopedia of Fairies
Encyclopedia of the Strange
Poets' Handbook and Rhyming Dictionary (by Clement Wood)
Geomorphology (by A. K. Lobeck)
Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars
The Number of the Beast

All read and re-read before I was 14, all major influences on my later self. But I might pick a different 10 on a different day.

Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
Airport - Arthur Hailey
City - Clifford Simak
At least a few books from Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare.

Anything else changes through the years but somehow these manage to show up within weeks after I move somewhere - even if I do not get my old books with me:)

This doesn't seem to make sense to me as my shelves are alpha by author. So whatever is at eye level depends on (1) authors' last names, (2) the width of my shelves, (3) the number of books I have at the current moment.

"It is that peculiar notion of items encountered at a certain period of one's life, often during youth, which remain favorites for the rest of their lives regardless of other shifts in taste through maturity or criticism (even justified) by others."

My "GOLDEN BOOKS"

El Blanco: The Legend of the White Stallion by Rutherford George Montogery
The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
Make a World by Ed Emberley (I mean COME ON!!! Make a World!!)
Anything by Richard Scarry (Where IS Goldbug?)
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Babar and all of its further tales
Bunnicula by James Howe
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis---probably the most influential.
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Anything by Piers Anthony

Tenggren's Pirates, Ships, and Sailors which led to a lifelong love of ships.
You will go the the Moon which introduced me to the Space program.
Secret of the Samurai Sword which eventually led to 2 years teaching in Japan.
Treason at York which introduced me to history in my own backyard.
Girls' Adventure stories of Long Ago a great combination of history, fiction and heroines.
Cue for Treason, which combined with trips to Stratford, On and Stratford-upon-Avon, led to a love of Shakespeare
Twelth Night which helped.
Partners in Crime because everyone in my family loves a mystery.

So this is the list of books I seem to read over and over (sorry my touchstones aren't working):

Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
His Dark Materials books by Philip Pulman
Where the Wild Things Are by Maruice Sendak
Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Gladiator by Philip Wylie
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Alice Books by Lewis Carroll
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Barsoom Books and Tarzan Books by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Chronicles of Amber Books by Roger Zelazny
Conan Books by Robert E. Howard
Kane Books by Karl Edgar Wagner
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Riftwar Saga by Rayment E. Feist
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear
World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer
Oz Books by L. Frank Baum

I've read all of the above an embarrassingly large number of times and they seem to hold up well. Some I encountered in my youth, others in college or most recently.

Strange,

Just bought 3 Billy book cases (yesterday) to add to the 4 I bought 21+ years ago. The modern ones are 10 cm. narrower (at 80 cm) and the backplate is now a folded piece. Seems flimsier.

This thread made me look at my books at that level.
Yep. Poetry and Cat books on one shelf. TBR pile over several shelves in another case. Reference in case 3 and Hitler and Stalin in case 4, This is only in my living room. Library is mainly Alphabetic or Subject matter order. I couldn't see any emphasis there.

I'll have to rethink my arrangement. Visitors might read too much into my "eye level" choices :-)

Guido.

This thread reminds me of the special shelf of books that the Scottish writer Alexander Smith wrote about. The essay, "A Shelf in My Bookcase," is one of the essays contained in Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Alexander Smith

I have replicated that shelf of books in my own library.

Thanks #14,

"I was angry with my friend, I did tell.... my rothe did not end..."

But I did send your link (Smith)

Lets see what happens,

Guido.

I used to have a "top shelf" where I gathered my favorite authors, the ones that I would end up buying every book they wrote once discovered. The bookcase in question is shorter so top ends up close to eye-level. The list as shared about 5 years ago:

J.R.R. Tolkien (almost half the shelf)
Judith Merkle Riley
Sharon Shinn
Josephine Tey (Daughter of Time)
Arthur Miller (The Crucible - this is the copy purchased at the Broadway performance)
Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earing)
Jasper Fforde
Rosamunde Pilcher (The Shell Seekers)
Carl Sagan (Contact)
Orson Scott Card (almost the the other half of the shelf)

When I last moved however I re-organized all the fictional novels to be alphabetical by author name. I bought some additional shelves (BESTÅ for particular room dimensions) and did in fact put my little collection of Star Wars & Lord of the Rings movie-related books about eye-level or "golden."