The 'Share Your Shelves' Thread - post a photo!

[Elizabeth_rb]

A thread just for the sheer fun of having a browse along members' bookshelves.  Please post a photo or six of your Chinese language, linguistics and area studies (if you like) book collection.

 

Here are our main Chinese collection, the dictionaries etc in my own room, the area studies shelf section and, for contrast, my other language texts.  I realised that I/we have as many Chinese language texts as I do all the other languages put together!!  My hubby has a couple of dozen books besides these which he keeps in his room.

 

As you can see, I have a fair few 'Teach Yourself', 'X in Three Months', Schaum and 'Practice Makes Perfect'.  Chinese needs more of these last, but they've (McGraw Hill) at least made a start now. 

 

I don't know if this link will work, but this is my Amazon Chinese Language wish list, i.e. all the books I'd like to add to this collection!!

[anonymoose]

I like this thread. It's interesting to see what other people have on their bookshelves!

 

Most of my books are back in the UK, but here are most of what I have on my shelves here in China:

 

 

My head aches when I think about how I'm going to get all these books home with me.

[mikelove]

Here's a portion of mine, though there are about two moving boxes' worth of stuff not shown. At one point I had it in mind to own a printed version of every dictionary we sell, but then we licensed the darn 汉语大词典 and that ran up against the limit of what my wife was willing to put up with in an admittedly rather-cramped apartment.

 

(camera is not dictionary-related - books live in the baby's room)

 

(and yes, Shorter OED is not a Chinese dictionary, but many printed Chinese dictionaries use English words so obscure that one needs to consult a comprehensive English dictionary to look them up - plus it's probably my favorite non-Chinese dictionary anyway, albeit one that badly needs a better mobile app)

 

EDIT: realized that my proudest Chinese book possession is almost hidden - Ruth Lor Malloy's "Travel Guide to the People's Republic of China" from 1975, with advice on things like visiting communes and dealing with your Responsible Person, and allusions to the "Criticize Lin and Confucius" campaign as a contemporary event.

[Geiko]

I love this post! Here you have my Chinese bookshelf, unfortunately my buying speed is much higher than my reading speed, so there are many books there waiting patiently to be read

 

[imron]

Here's mine from 2 years back.  Will take a photo of the other shelves once I get back home in a few days.

 

[Elizabeth_rb]

Great shelves, everyone!  There are some titles there I'd love to borrow....

 

unfortunately my buying speed is much higher than my reading speed, so there are many books there waiting patiently to be read 

 

This is a problem I have with books, art/textiles stuff and a few other things...  I am trying to cut down, use/read up and plan to halve my personal possessions for the next house move.

[Shelley]

Well here are my shelves, this made me brush up my rusty skills of photography, image manipulation and learning how to post images on Chinese forums.

 

There are few gaps, these books are probably around somewhere in the house being read. This is great fun, a bit like snooping but more friendly.

[Elizabeth_rb]

Yay!  Someone else has the 'Elementary Chinese Readers' flashcard set!  I do too, but not visible on my photos.

 

FYI Shelley: I discovered this morning that you don't need to click 'add to post' with the photos.  That puts them in the middle of your text.  if you want to move them to the bottom, just edit the post and delete all the coding junk for the photos in the text.  It'll then just put them at the bottom, but they're perfectly visible as they are and thanks for sharing!

 

I thought this would either be a thread folk would enjoy joining in or end up as a complete damp squib.  Glad it's the former and looking keenly forward to the two promised lots to come....

[Shelley]

I know there are a few non Chinese books but not too many so I didn't rearrange my shelves for these photos.

 

Thanks for the photo posting tip, guess I figured if you didn't add them they wouldn't show up.

 

I have actually got 2 sets of the Elementary Chinese reader flashcards, as I inherited one from a fellow Chinese learner who passed away last year.

 

In fact if you want to be impressed by shelves full of Chinese books this chap beats us all hands down

 

I am actually compiling a list of all of his books so his wife can sell/donate them to someone or some school or college.

 

When I have finished the list ( won't be till the summer at the earliest as I am only doing it when i have time)I was going to ask if I could post it on Chinese forums. We are talking of about 2000 books or more, so not a small list, there are all the usual books plus some foreign language Chinese text books, for example there is a blue leather bound 7 book set of a french to Chinese dictionary, also some dutch and German as he was originally dutch. She would of course like the collection to go in 1 or 2 or maybe 3 lots as she doesn't have time to do it one book at a time.

 

Anyway when the list is finished i will post it in the small ads here

 

Lets hope more people post their bookshelves.

[Elizabeth_rb]

I'd be interested.  After all, I need more books.....    

 

OK, I meant interested in looking.  

 

PS I also had two sets of those flashcards, but my second set came from a Japanese student who was returning home.  I gave them to someone else later on.

[Shelley]

And I forgot these 2 photos. Will try the new method of posting.  Keep an eye out for the list but as I say it won't be complete for a while.

[Ania]

I love this post! Here you have my Chinese bookshelf, unfortunately my buying speed is much higher than my reading speed, so there are many books there waiting patiently to be read 

I kind of have the same problem. I have 2 or 3 textbooks that I have yet to start using (but it's good to be well stocked ) and a few graded readers that are waiting to be read (although those are "shelved" on My Kindle). 

 

My Chinese shelf is only about a year old, so there's not very much on it, but I might still take a picture of it later

[Elizabeth_rb]

My Chinese shelf is only about a year old, so there's not very much on it, but I might still take a picture of it later

 

Please do, Ania!  We still want to see....

[Gharial]

I posted these on Elizabeth's other thread (her "Does anyone only study low-tech?" one), but she asked me to post them here too. I'm actually in the process of moving house, so all but my core Chinese books are now packed away (I kept the core ones out to take these pics, and maybe to do a bit more work on that T.K. Ann Pinyin index if I have a few spare moments). My new place has a lot more space, and I'm looking forward to being able to shelve my books properly, after which I'll take some more photos. I have at least 5 shelves' worth of ELT (grammar, lexis etc) and linguistics books, about 3 of martial arts, maybe another 2 of Japanese and extra Chinese stuff (readers etc), and a good 2 or so of travel stuff. Then there are lots of miscellaneous books (history, politics, philosophy). And don't get me started on my DVD and CD collections!

[geraldc]

   

 

Seeing as we live in London we have absolutely no space, so apologies for the shelf clutter. Most of the books belong to the other half, as she's Hong Kong born Chinese, all the native level books are hers, as I'm British born Chinese the grammar books and Chinese to English dictionary are mine. All the text books that show how dumb I am are hidden in the cellar.

[anonymoose]

I've added pictures to my previous post.

 

I just wish I had more time to read those books. I guess some of them are destined to never be read. They make good decorations though.

[Elizabeth_rb]

All the text books that show how dumb I am are hidden in the cellar.

 

Funny you should say that, as I have the opposite feeling.  When I see a row of textbooks, I think that the owner is intelligent and the kind of person I'd like to talk to.  By your definition though, I'm possibly the stupidest person in the city....

 

Thanks everyone for kindly posting or re-posting their pics - some of you have gone to some real trouble too!

 

My head aches when I think about how I'm going to get all these books home with me.

 

Post by surface mail?  We used TNT for some of our stuff too.  加油！Any move is a pain in the proverbial.  An international one is a killer.  We'll probably be moving to Stuttgart, Germany within the next 5 years, thus one of my reasons for wanting to halve my stuff.  Thankfully, some sort of road freight is possible then.

[geraldc]

As I'm ethnically Chinese, it's kind of expected that you can read and write, and so when friends and relatives come round and look at the Chinese as a foreign language books especially the basic ones, they go through them and have have a bit of a giggle. Well actually to be more accurate, they have a go at how ugly simplified form is first, then they have a giggle about how basic it is.  

[Elizabeth_rb]

Really?  I always assume a BBC can speak, but not read and write.  

 

Anyway, sounds more like you're suffering from others' rather bad manners than any deficiency on your part!

[Ruben von Zwack]

I don't have much to show, my CD and souvenir collection is probably more impressive!   But this is a fun topic.

The pile is things that I haven't found (or made) space for in the shelves yet. And books that are flying around the house aren't in the pictures, obviously, and what's also missing, cause it's not photogenic, is a shelfload of library photocopies on historical stuff.