New Digs

I know, I know. It has been far too long. Lesson plans for college courses do, in fact, take a great deal of time and energy, including the brainpower normally in reserve for the blog. I hope to re-regularize my postings and I expect to be held to this goal by you, my ambiguous cloud of readers. Next week I will talk about Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge but I have reserved today's posting to introduce you to the new home (physical, not electronic) of The Eastin Collection.

You may recall the howling mess of stacks depicted in my inagural blog. As you can see I had been horrendously taxed for space, what with a bookshelf full to the brim; a bibliophilic sin since, as you know, bookshelves should always have room for expansion. Not to mention the disarray with which my various anthologies and lesser-bound tomes were strewn about the floor. Well, back in March my wife and I bought a house and this meant that I got my own office space. I've since painted it blue (the rest of the house is beige. For some reason I feel like blue promotes a scholarly/artistic environment) and acquired a nice big wooden-slab-of-a-desk. But the bookshelves took some time.

Ever since our offer wen through I had been scouring craigslist, thrift stores, even Ikea and World Market for the perfect shelves. I was beginning to despair and became willing to simply grab a cheap particle-board set which is all too easy to find in the online classifieds when finally THE shelves appeared. Some may call me an old soul; I enjoy tweed, medieval books, old maps, and even have a quill pen sitting ready on my desk. So I was not about to fill my office with any of this modern Swedish junk, no. I was waiting for shelves of monolithic mahogany with beveled feet and crowns. This is precisely what appeared, and then some. Long story short, I picked them up and have only recently managed to organize the entirety of my book collection in the massive, tripartite book-castle (for it is hardly 'shelves') that looms behind me as I type.

 You may not be able to tell, but the center unit is nearly 7 feet tall! Also, the right side of the image may be a bit cut off because I had to stand in the closet in order to get the whole bookcase in the shot!

As you can see, I'm getting closer to that distant ideal. I, of course, have yet to have either the volume of books, the estate, or the time to construct the gigantic laddered affair that's been waiting in the attic of my imagination but this is good enough for now.