The odd thing about people that have lots of books is that they always want more.

Besides reading Ulysses during the last two weeks and spending as much time as possible with my daughter I finally convinced my husband to build a new small bookshelf….as a birthday gift! 

Of course I built it nearly on my own, because when it comes to do such kind of things husbands are normally like this:

We had some old wooden boards in our garage which a carpenter around the corner cut according to my measurements (for just 5 Euro!). Then I screwed all single boards together, carefully painted them and after some hours...tadaa: my incredibly cheap and very useful birthday gift was ready!

Finally I was able to store my thrillers and all English authors. Although I normally don't keep thrillers and pass them immediately to my friends after reading, I keep some good ones I surely will reread after some years (after having forgotten who the murderer was!!!). 

Some months ago I experienced a sort of “book crisis” as I looked at my hopelessly overcrowded bookshelves! I took a very very deep breath and strictly sorted out many books I would never ever read again and/or didn't feel the urge to keep (with the basic motivation, that this would make place for new ones!!!).
Then I gave it some thought to find a new system which would fulfill my personal "literary needs" and rearranged my books according to these categories: 

German, French, Italian, Spanish, Jewish, Greek and all further international authors, Art and Art History, History and Culture, Biographies, Travel books. 
All new and loaned books I intend to read in the future found their place in an extra bookshelf in our bedroom.This way I can decide after having read them if a book will pass on to my friends, go to my studio for crafts or get a place in my bookshelves in the livingroom.

 It was a relief... with only one tiny restriction:

There was no space left for my thrillers and all English and American literature. So I stored these books in our basement and although it is plenty of space down there I didn't like this solution at all: 

I definitely need to have all my books around me! They belong to my livingroom! An additional bookshelve was therefore unavoidable, don't you agree?
Of course I still had to leave some books in our basement. I decided this would definitely be all our dictionaries and cookbooks: dictionaries are nowadays widely replaced by the internet and most of my cookbooks are dispensable because I have the luxury to have a cooking addict husband at my disposal who doesn't need them very often...(if he absolutely will need a cookbook I will do him of course the big favour to get it from the basement).   :-)


You might say now, what was this all about: a silly bookshelf?!

Yep, I am a incorrigible book addict, what else?!