my odd shelf

rereading anne fadiman's ex-libris i came across the notion of the "odd shelf" that shelf in one's library --- where the unique special interest of the reader finds solice. i've begun organizing my library into large categories such as fiction, architecture, art, technology and philosophy. my books outnumber the number of bookshelves so books are lumped on every surface in the house. Mine reside mostly in the basement where my cluttered studio and computer resides -- but the bookshelves abound throughout the house....the kitchen bookshelves house the cookbook collection and my wife's favorite fiction - A.S. Byatt, Nicholson Baker, Dorothy L. Sayer's and the like, an upstairs library filled with oversized books, bedside bookshelves, bedroom bookshelves, and my library at work.....such as it is my odd shelf is within a five tier metal gym locker between two bookshelves in the studio....the upper locker is filled with tiny monographs of modernist european architecture --- "werk documents" a series by hatje cantz verlag. these monographs are most inspiring. they are joined by my collection of princeton architectural press's pamphlet architecture series that I began collecting in college and tiny tombs on kahn, gropius, terragni comingled with old catalogues from william stout booksellers (tiny-folded-4-point text type-set listings of obscure architectural books). i'm fascinated by the mini-book and have many self-published books that follow an idea or a thought. ciao