Laura’s Books and Blogs’ Bookshelf Tour!

After noticing that I had completely neglected to schedule a blog post for February 19, 2021 in advance, I took this opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons and scramble together a fun post where I provide a tour of my bookshelves. After recently buying a new bookcase and reorganizing my books, it felt like a good time to do it. And if you’re visiting this blog, chances are, you like, if not love, to read. So, perusing another person’s bookshelf is probably a good time in your eyes. So, below is my official Laura’s Books and Blogs’ bookshelf tour!

FYI, links will open in a new tab. This post also contains affiliate links. Help support LBB, authors, and local bookstores with your purchases through my bookshop.org links. I will earn a commission on any sales.  

Toys and decorations

Starting at the top of my highest shelf, here is where I keep some of my old toys, collectibles that I’ve received as gifts, and little figurines that I’ve picked up over the years. As you can see, I’m a big superhero fan. The room itself is decorated in superhero posters. So, these toys fit in with the rest of the room.

Hanging off of the shelf are some book-themed necklaces that I’ve purchased over the years. Some are too chunky or tacky to wear. So, they’ve become decorations. A few are meant to be bookmarks, but it didn’t take them long to stretch out and become unusable. So, they work better in this collection.

My TBR pile

Every reader has a collection of TBR (“to be read”) books. My pile usually contains between 30-50 books. This pile is actually on the smaller side for me. Some have been on this shelf a few weeks, others a few months, and the rest a few years. Some I’ve read before and others I’ve never read.

Whether or not they’ll find a permanent spot on my shelf will depend on how much I like it. The pile itself tends to grow as fast as it depletes. But I know I’ll get to all of the books you see in this photo eventually. These are books that I read for fun in between reviewing books for this blog and the other sites I write for.

You’ll see a lot of middle grade titles in the pile. Being a children’s author, I still read children’s books as often as I can. I tend to revisit old favorites, but once in a while, I’ll pick up a few I never got to as a kid or ones I’d never heard of until now.

The great thing about middle grade books is that they’re a quick read. I can finish them in just a few days. It helps me to catch up whenever I fall behind on my Goodreads reading goals. But most of all, they’re a fun, partial return to childhood reading.

Poetry and plays

Looking at this shelf, you’d think I was really into poetry and plays. In reality, I was a creative writing major in college. So, a lot of these were books I had to buy for class or books that were gifted to me by my college professors.

See that Random House Book of Poetry for Children in the left-hand corner? That was a prize I received in the first grade for reading the most books in my class. Only a hardcore reader would appreciate a book as a prize. When I brought it home from school that day, I showed my mom, and she told me to keep it nice. Aside from some tears in the dust jacket, I have. And it’s a book that I revisit often.

If I ever run out of room, these poetry books will be some of the first to go (either donated or put in local little free libraries). I keep them mostly because I have a hard time getting rid of books from my past (as you’ll see below). But I rarely, if ever, pick them up, except to clean or reorganize, and they’d probably be more appreciated by a reader who actually likes these genres.

Memoirs and biographies

This is one of my most favorite shelves. I love to read and collect celebrity memoirs and biographies about famous people, mostly actors and comedians. I’ve written about memoirs multiple times before, including on this blog in the post, “How Memoirs Inspire Essay Writing.”

What sounds like casual reads in a throwaway genre have actually taught me a lot, not only about fame and Hollywood but about life and how to write in an entertaining way that still has substance. I love sharing the stories that I find in these books with non-readers, and even if I can’t tell them as well as the author, they’re still good stories to hear.

Hardcover fiction

The next shelf down houses my hardcover fiction books. As you can see, Stephen King books take up a good majority of this shelf. You can read about My Top 10 Stephen King Novels here!

You’ll also see some YA titles by the Green brothers. I’m a little outside their demographic, but if I can read middle grade, I can read some YA too. I first got into them while watching their YouTube channel, vlogbrothers. So, whenever they have a book coming out, I’m quick to pick it up.

There are also a mixture of classics such as East of Eden and To Kill a Mockingbird along with some contemporary novels that I read after watching the movie and loved just as much, such as White Oleander and Room.

I buy most of my books at used bookstores. But even then, I hesitate to buy hard cover when a paperback could be purchased for a fraction of the cost. With King’s books, I like to try to collect the original covers, or at least the covers on the books that I borrowed from the library when I first read the books.

Coffee table books

Being a movie lover, I have a hard time passing up books about movies or other pop culture obsessions. You can see by this collection that I’m really into directors like Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg, the Muppets, and the Titanic sinking. Non-movie books include books about the British royal family, historical photographs, and superhero comics.

These are books that I’ve read cover to cover and then pull out to flip through every so often. These books require a tall shelf, and space is limited. So, I’ve tried to avoid buying anymore of these books unless I can make space for them or if they’re too good to pass up.

Comics and graphic novels

Moving onto the next shelf, I’ve stacked the top with my graphic novel collection. I keep my single-issue comics in a box, but these books are too big to fit into that box, and there are too many of them anyway.

I mostly collect Batman comics, but you’ll see a mixture of Marvel and D.C. titles.  Most are bagged and boarded using plastic sleeves that I brought home from my old job and cardboard or cardstock recycled from old packaging. You can read my post, 10 Superhero Comics that Should Be Made into Movies here!

But there are more than just superhero comics in this pile. While scanning the graphic novels section at the bookstore, I often come across non-superhero stories that I like to try out. And I’m rarely disappointed. Of these, I highly suggest Stitches by David Small, Only Skin by Sean Ford, and Ghost World by Daniel Clowes.

The binders are full of photocopied short stories from high school and college. Have I ever revisited these stories? No. Should I just recycle them? Yes. Will I? Not today.

On top of that, the manilla envelope is full of old letters addressed to me from a classroom full of students in Missouri. In the first grade, our teacher assigned a state to each of us and sent in letters we had written to another first-grade class in each state. Some wrote back, and my state was one of them.

Every letter is written on that practice paper that has a blank space to draw a picture at the top and a few lines to write at the bottom. Nearly every letter is exactly the same. But it was so cool to get a response back that I’ve never thrown them away. Ultimately, I appreciate being thought of in any way, even by strangers I’ve never met before or since.

Nonfiction and memoirs continued

The next shelf down is a continuation of memoirs. These are smaller books that fit on these more narrow shelves. I particularly love Nora Ephron’s books of essays. She’s so unrelatable but such a good writer that I love hearing about her first world problems, like hating her purse and feeling self-conscious about her neck.

I don’t know much about horse racing, but I also couldn’t put down that Seabiscuit biography. It contains some intense stories about the horseracing sport and the real life counterparts of the characters seen in the movie.

Thrown in are some straight nonfiction titles such as How to Make Friends and Influence People. There’s also an old Steven Spielberg book that’s so outdated that it ends with Saving Private Ryan as his most recent film.

Thanks Jack, In Need of a Miracle is not a well-known book, but it’s special to me because it’s the first book that I ever professionally reviewed. Back in college, I wrote for a blog called The Blogger News Network. They sometimes had books and movies available for review, and I not only read and reviewed the book, but I also interviewed the author over the phone. It took me awhile to get back into reviewing books after that blogging gig ended, but being so young and inexperienced made it so fun and rewarding.

Middle grade novels

The next shelf starts my middle grade collection. You’ll see some famous children’s book titles from Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary. Then, there are classics like Harriet the Spy, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. You’ll even see a few Boxcar Children thrown in there.

This continues to the next shelf where you’ll find some fairy tale titles along with survival stories like Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain. There’s some E.B. White thrown in along with a few Judy Blume. These are essential to any middle grade novel collection.

The Baby-sitters Club

I was a big Baby-sitters Club fan growing up. So, as I’ve come across the books, I’ve picked them up. I only collect the covers that matched the books I read growing up, of course. As you can see, there are a bunch of gaps in the collection. I’d like to at least fill in the blanks, and I definitely need some books featuring Jessi. But I don’t want to take up too much space.

You can read my love letter to the Baby-sitters Club series here!

Goosebumps and more!

Goosebumps were another popular series that I read growing up. And my book prize winnings didn’t stop with that poetry book in the first grade. Each year, I would be one of the top readers in my class and would win gift certificates (not cards, certificates) to Border’s Books. There, I’d usually blow it on value packs of my favorite books. That’s why some of my Goosebumps books are boxed in packs of four.

There’s also a Nickelodeon-themed book collection in there along with some movie novelizations. I once wrote a book report of that Beethoven’s 2^nd novelization, citing it as my favorite book because I was obsessed with the movie at the time.

My books and publications!

This small shelf is dedicated to books I have written and literary journals that have published my work. It’s a modest tribute to my small writing victories which I should be adding to shortly. You can learn more about my publication history, learn more about my books, or even purchase copies here!

The Little House Series

A fact I usually share about myself is that I was named after Laura Ingalls Wilder. So, it feels a bit narcissistic to love this series as much as I do. But I really do love it. Over the years, I have collected the Little House books during RIF day at school, using my Border’s gift certificates, and more recently, by scanning the middle grade shelves at the used bookstore.

You’ll find my favorite incarnation of the original series here with the Garth Williams illustrations. I also have a few copies of the young Caroline Ingalls (Laura’s mother) series.

Then, on the next shelf, you’ll find some miscellaneous books about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I also kept my original copy of Little Town on the Prairie which I once accidentally left on my swing set overnight and was ruined by the morning dew. Again, I’m taking up space with copies of books whose value are strictly sentimental.

Rounding out this shelf are a few other classic middle grade stories. They’ll be moved as my Little House collection grows. You can read more about the Little House series here!

Picture books

The final shelf on this bookcase is dedicated to picture books. Some are classics such as The Giving Tree and Amelia Bedelia. Many are my childhood book series such as The Muppet Babies and the Little Golden Books. I have a young nephew who loves to read even though he isn’t even verbal yet. So, I’m keeping this shelf low so that he can reach it whenever he becomes of age and is able to go fetch a book to flip through without trying to eat the pages.

Final bookcase

My last shelf is my newest. Here I’ve displayed my prized Batmobile model along with a set of tarot cards that I won in an Instagram giveaway and my copy of The Writer’s Block. This book has never helped me with a story idea, but it’s still a cute book that looks good in pictures. But if you’d like to learn more about the tarot cards, check out my post, “Giving Myself a Tarot Card Reading” here!

Activity books

I reserved this top shelf for tall books that wouldn’t fit on any other shelf. These include my prized Where’s Waldo book, another book that I won in a reading contest at my local library along with a giant polar bear stuffed animal.

Pack rat me also decided to keep my dated Girl Scout books which are fun to flip through if you want to revisit what it was like to be a pre-teen girl in the 90’s. There are also sticker books, crossword puzzles, and homemade scrapbooks.

Then there are my three school yearbooks which chronicled fifth, seventh, and eighth grades respectively. I opted out of the high school yearbooks which I don’t regret, especially since Facebook formed shortly after I graduated high school. So, who needs a yearbook anymore? The last thing I need is another piece of nostalgia to find a space for. At least I’m organized with my junk, I guess.

Paperback and small fiction books

The next two shelves are devoted to paperback novels or small novels that would look too ridiculous on my larger shelf. Here, you’ll find a mixture of classics, contemporary, and indie novels that I’ve read over the years. The two books in the bottom right-hand corner are copies of Jane Eyre and Dracula that I really love. I also have a Sense and Sensibility in this format that’s still sitting in my TBR pile. I bought them at Barnes & Noble years ago, and now I wish all of my classics were in this format.

Reference books

Unfortunately, I have to end this tour with the most boring shelf of all: the reference books. These are books that I bought thinking that I would keep them at my writing desk to refer to, not realizing that spell check and Google have rendered these books obsolete.

The dictionary was a requirement for a college English class with an elderly teacher who insisted that we use this book because the internet apparently did not exist in his mind. The Flip Dictionary was a recommendation (not a requirement) from another college professor who said that this book is helpful when you can’t think of the word you’re looking for but can look it up based on words related to that word. It’s a good idea in theory, but this book has never helped me to successfully find the word I was looking for.

The finish line!

If you made it through this entire post, thanks so much for sticking with me while I share my book collection. I’d love to hear about yours! Share your book display and decorating tips in the comments below. Or consider writing a book-themed guest post for my blog. You can find my guest post guidelines here!

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