The Bookcase

I've heard that if you want to know about people, you can learn a lot based on the cars they drive. I guess that's fine, but I think bookcases are far more insightful.

My favorite bookcase (Yes, I have a favorite bookcase) is the one in my bedroom. It has an ebony stain. It's five feet tall and has four shelves.

A friend custom-made it for me when I first moved into my apartment. He's a woodworker, and he generously only charged me for the cost of materials. He is a school teacher and explained that woodworking was his therapy to get through trying to do hybrid learning with COVID-19.

Above the bookcase hangs my Lord of the Rings poster. Sitting atop the case is an old teapot and teacup from my grandmother and a photo of Niagara Falls. I bought that photo after I went back there. After the trauma trip.

The top shelf is exclusively Star Wars and Doctor Who. I started my Star Wars book collection before Star Wars Canon was a serious thing. Most of the ones I have aren't canon. Somehow that doesn't bother me. The Darth Vader Funko Pop fits on the shelf nicely.

The next shelf down is an odd conglomeration of fantasy and mystery. I guess this is where I admit I was organizing based on height rather than theme when I put the books on the shelf. There's a few children's story books about unicorns and pirates. I have a volume of the first three Nancy Drew mysteries. I never got past the first of those as a kid, but it's a nice copy, so I can't bear to throw it out.

The Divergent Trilogy is there in its box, with the bonus book, Four. There's Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, next to The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. C.S. Lewis' The Space Trilogy and all I have of The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm ashamed to say I don't have the full series. (When you grow up with a library as extensive as my mother's, you don't realize what you don't have until you move out.)

The next shelf down is my open confession to my Batman and Robin obsession. Volumes from the Golden Age. I could always get good deals on those at the comic book store in the mall near my grandma and grandpa's house. The first three volumes of the Nightwing Rebirth comics. That set was a gift to myself when I got off night shift at work.

One volume of the saga of how Bane broke Batman's back. I don't like Jean-Paul Valley.

The Giver. 1984. Books that make me think.

My little taste of books based on the world of video games: Batman novels based on Arkham Knight. Those books are some of the first things that helped me admit that the story plots for video games can be cool, even if I don't game.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. I finally have my own copy. I have read it three times. I discover something new with each read, and it inspires pieces like the one I wrote about Captain America.

A biography of Winston Churchill's life. My copy of No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet. I read the character of Horatio when we read through the play for school.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. More than a Carpenter by Sean and Josh McDowell. That one has teeth marks on it from when my puppy got ahold of it.

I had asked for the bottom shelf to be the tallest. I wanted it to be tall enough to accommodate essential but massive volumes. The DC comics Encyclopedia. Doctor Who character and episode guides. Piratology. My hardcover and illustrated edition of The Hobbit. I got that the Christmas that the first Hobbit movie came out. The hardcover illustrated edition of A Christmas Carol. My sister got that for me the year we were both in the musical.

Every book has more than one story. Each has little memories attached to it. The book, Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray is the book I took to the emergency room with me when I had to get stitches in my thumb. I took it because I knew I'd be bored.

The Sherlock Holmes short stories were what I was reading when I started consistently drinking tea in the morning. It was a slippery slope to coffee after that.

Arrow: A Generation of Vipers is the book I picked out at Barnes and Noble as a Christmas gift from my sister. We did it as a Christmas in July outing that year.

The Unofficial Batman Trivia Challenge was the book my grandparents got me when I was attempting to write a Batman novel. I never finished that attempt, but that's around the time when the writing spark started.

The Magician's Nephew is the book that takes me back to an incident of grief. It was after our friend's baby died. My mom pointed me to the following scene and talked about God feeling our pain even deeper than we do. It's when Digory asks Aslan if Aslan can can cure his mother.

Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.

I found it comforting then. I still think of it now when I read the story.

The significance of this bookcase multiplies as I recall the memories attached to each paper volume. And for a moment, I pause and reflect on the complexity of people and how we all have stories to tell.

How we are all so much more than flesh and bones. And how every once in a great while, we get a glimpse. Just a glimpse into the pain, joy, redemption, challenges, and experiences of other people.

Revealed to us without the filters of social media.

Their true stories. Shown just briefly when we look at their bookcases and ask about the stories behind the books that fill them.

This is my bookcase. It houses a collection of stories both real and fictional that have influenced me. It's quirky and crammed full of books. And it is beautiful. It's something in my room that reminds me of what I enjoy and allows me to see the person I've become.

So, what does your bookcase say about you? What stories do you have to share with the world?

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