I’ve been having a mini vacation of sorts taking off from from since Wednesday and I’m not going back until Tuesday next week. Library school starts again on Monday and I have been taking advantage of my free time to read, write letters, garden and play with my book piles. More about those book piles in a minute.

First, if you have not seen On Reading by André Kertész, you must get yourself to a library or bookstore. This is a beautiful little photography book of black and white photos of people reading taken all around the world. Kertész took the photographs between 1915 and 1970. There are sixty-six of them. One of the things that is really wonderful about them is how many are taken in parks or on rooftops. It is a real delight to page through if you get the chance. Until then, you can see a few of the photos at The Guardian.

I missed blogging yesterday because we were preparing for the possibility of severe weather. Tornadoes were dropping from the clouds north, south and west of the Twin Cities. Shoes, cats, weather radio, flashlights, computer, and books. We were ready to take cover in the basement. We got a single clap of thunder, some big wind gusts, and a little rain. We were fortunate because a few small towns south and west of us were almost completely destroyed. The weather service is still sorting it out, but it seems there may have been as many as 35 tornadoes yesterday which would break the record of 27 set on June 16, 1992. Remarkably only three people died. We have a fantastic warning system here for which we are ever grateful. My heart goes out to the families of the three people who died and to those who now begin the hard work of putting their lives back together.

So as not to end on such a sober note, I thought I would show you what did as a result of playing with my book piles. Previously, the books that did not fit on the shelves were stacked willy-nilly on the floor beneath and near the shelves. I could not see what was on the piles and had no idea what was there which is why I found a few duplicates in the mess. I decided to sort them out fiction and nonfiction and pile them up so I could see what I have. Here then, is the nonfiction shrine (the photos are on Flickr and if you click on them you can view the large versions in which I believe you can read most of the titles if you feel so inclined):

And here are the now tidy piles of fiction:

The fiction stacks extend a bit beyond the photo (there are two more under-shelf piles) but you get the idea. I didn’t get to the books stacked on the shelves themselves but I can see those just fine. Now I know what I have, and yes, with every book I kept saying, “Oh, I have to read this soon.” Soon obviously doesn’t mean what I think it means.