BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS Everywhere BOOKS
BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS Everywhere BOOKS
Nancy
This photo montage shows many, but far from all my books.
There are shelves, boxes, piles of boxes, shelves, book shelves, walls of shelve, closets, attic spaces and the 4 shelves in front of my (non-working) fireplace filled with art, architecture, stories and storytelling books also the banker boxes sorted by topic that do not fit on the various shelves or closets not shown in these photos
I started buying books with my weekly allowance when I was 12 or 13 in 1956-57.
Books were like candy and ice cream desserts for me for years.
I read, read, read... excessively as a pre-teen and teenager ...
UNTIL I took a GREAT BOOKS course in my Junior year of high school and the obsessive ways the teacher had us analyze the books TURNED ME OFF from reading the novels and story collection books I was reading. One memory is when we read THE SCARLET LETTER and he explained how Robert Lewis Stevenson planned down to every detail the book.
It then became NON-FICTION BOOKS that I bought and read.
When we moved into this house and I set up my office in the extra bedroom and I began better organizing my books by category and specific topic. After Merry died my library began to grow and grow and expand into every room, closet, storage space, attic space.
Here is an example of how they are CLUSTERED (not necessarily organized alphabetically) from room to room.
This idea was inspired by one of my professors on my doctoral committee. She too had a vast library or libraries for each of her areas of interest. After her husband died and her two children moved out she began sorting her vast collections of books by topic by room.
Over the past 10 years I have not been that organized except that I do put the books in the specific rooms or closets or in banker boxes by topic.
from 1964 onward my working in 8 careers totally influenced by reading and book buying.
8 careers - professions areas of zealous commitment
plus hobbies became why I bought and read books:
cartooning (since I began traveling around the world I began buying favorite cartoonists in each country
writing: various types of writing, various books about writing: humor, mystery, business, travel, etc.
Stories/Storytelling (as a teenager I began buying books of stories from around the world and did while I was traveling to new countries until 2014). In the Summer of 1984 when Merry and I first attended two workshops in Jonesborough, Tenn at the center for NAPPS - National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling and then attended our first SOS Winter Festival in December in Atlanta I began buying books (audio tapes, cds, dvds) of the various storytellers I liked from around the US and about storytelling and story writing.
training: when I began training in 1980 I began buying and writing books about: leadership, communication, teamwork, negotiation, conflict, diversity and other business topics that have been hot since then that clients hired me to speak and/or train on.
architecture: began buying these when I was studying architecture at LIT 62-66 and beyond while I worked as an architect thru to 1983
art and art history: began buying those while working on degrees B.A. and M.F.A. and considered leaving architecture for teaching design, art and art history, which I did from 1980 to 1984
graphics and varied design professions: these I began buying when I was working on a degree in Advertising at WSU and then my masters in visual communication when I left Gunnar Birkerts office and architecture for a couple years.
teaching: when I began working with the 23 academically gifted children at Plumosa Elementary School in Delray Beach I once again became obsessed with learning about teaching and learning which led me to work on 5 degrees in Education, completed two: M.Ed. Guidance and Counseling of Gifted, Talented and Creative individuals and my PhD in Educational Psychology focused on the Teaching and Training of Creative Thinking Traits, Skills and Tools
speaking: been speaking full time since 1984 and have bought many on various aspects of the profession and business
gardening: while I was actively gardening from 1986 to 1998
walking: when I began seriously walking while traveling in 1977 and then again when I began walking for health in 1995.
I live in what I have called my
TREEHOUSE OF BOOKS
now for 31 years
My thinking style typically is highly divergently intuitive which tends to impact how I organize my life and things in my life.
FILE by PILE (out of sight, out of mind)
when the PILES get too BIG I put them on shelves or in files
when the SHELVES or FILES overflow I BOX them by topic
When the BOX overflows I fill other BOXES
then I PILE THE BOXES
then I FILL ROOMS or STORAGE SPACES by topic
my life of design prevents me from allowing CHAOS for very long
yet my obsessiveness of living in the moment and my mood plus doing new things has led me to simply pile and put out of sight what I am not willing to devote hours to ANALLY organizing so that anyone who MIGHT visit me does not see my true DESIGNER version of HOARDING.
Here is how my CREATIVITY ROOM now looks in its state of
CLUSTERED CHAOS.
Since then and as I became more and more electronic I stopped spending much time anally organize my STUFF.
About 10 years ago I became aware of my
BUYING FAR MORE THAN
I ACTUALLY READ FROM COVER TO COVER.
I had become oblivious to how much I spent on books
BUYING
while not
ALWAYS READING THEM COMPLETELY.
Then 5 or 6 years ago I became more frugal about buying paperback or hard cover books in print and began buying Kindle and other electronic or pdf format books.
That got out of hand.
One day I remember ordering 18 or more electronic books about creative thinking through Kindle plus downloading many FREE out of date novels.
During the next week I scanned the latest and hottest creativity books and found most to be very badly written and very poor content.
That is when I went from reading 5 books a week on an average as I had been reading since 1970 when I took my first Evelyn Wood Speed-reading course to seldom finishing ONE is a week to two weeks now.
I took the Evelyn Wood Course to help me with my reading in graduate school and then in preparation for the 7 NCARB - National Council of Architectural Registration Boards LICENSE EXAMS from 1967 to 1972 when I passed the last of the 7.
When Merry and I met in 1978 we took the AMERICAN SPEEDREADING course to help her prepare for the GRE test for acceptance to graduate school at FAU.
From 1970 to 1980 I retook the Evelyn Wood course a few times for FREE to reboot my speed. At least that was the excuse or reason I used.
I use some of those techniques for reading non-fiction not for FICTION. The study and scan techniques the EW courses teach are very helpful for studying and refreshing your memory
NOT FOR ENJOYING WHAT YOU READ.
One of my mentors as a trainer and professional speaker I worked with from 1984 to 1986 had a course: book and audio tape series titled:
HOW TO READ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IN 15 MINUTES.
Actually the WALL STREET JOURNAL is designed for fast reading actually compared to any other newspaper or magazine.
Many years ago I was a fan of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
One episode has become very prophetic of my life, especially the last 10 years.
Burgess Meredith was the actor in the episode. He was the first non-star actor or character actor whose name I remembered then.
His character was an obsessive reader.
He always had a book with him.
He read every time he could.
His wife was depicted as a SHREW, always yelling at him, always controlling him. But he controlled his BREAK-TIMES at work. He controlled his LUNCH TIMES. He controlled quiet times when he wasn't home or his wife was not around or asleep.
He READ, READ, READ.
From 1960 onward that was basically me.
He worked in a large bank and would read in the vault on his lunch hours EVERY DAY.
One day while he was in the vault an atomic bomb hit killing everyone but HIM in his town. The food and water was okay. The bomb left only him alive.
After he got over the initially shock and excitement that his SHREW of a wife was GONE he had the idea that
NOW I CAN READ ALL THE TIME.
"There is no one to stop me".
So he gathers up ALL the books in his town, organizes them by topic into piles in the order he would read them.
The final scene showed him walking down the steps of the entrance to a large building, perhaps the bank or the library to begin reading.
Hit trips and stumbles. His glasses fall off and he steps on them destroying them making it impossible with his very poor eyesight to ever read again.
Metaphorically that has happened in my life emotionally over the past 10 years for many reasons.
I have all the time in the world to read and I no longer typically have the motivation or interest and perhaps the ability to focus long enough now. Perhaps as an after effect of my 4+ weeks behind bars.
If I was actively speaking, training, teaching and writing I might READ, READ, READ again.
as you can tell.....writing I can do....IN SPURTS like this at least.
Reading I don't seem to have the drive or patience or desire or need to any more.
Nancy
This photo montage shows many, but far from all my books.
There are shelves, boxes, piles of boxes, shelves, book shelves, walls of shelve, closets, attic spaces and the 4 shelves in front of my (non-working) fireplace filled with art, architecture, stories and storytelling books also the banker boxes sorted by topic that do not fit on the various shelves or closets not shown in these photos
I started buying books with my weekly allowance when I was 12 or 13 in 1956-57.
Books were like candy and ice cream desserts for me for years.
I read, read, read... excessively as a pre-teen and teenager ...
UNTIL I took a GREAT BOOKS course in my Junior year of high school and the obsessive ways the teacher had us analyze the books TURNED ME OFF from reading the novels and story collection books I was reading. One memory is when we read THE SCARLET LETTER and he explained how Robert Lewis Stevenson planned down to every detail the book.
It then became NON-FICTION BOOKS that I bought and read.
When we moved into this house and I set up my office in the extra bedroom and I began better organizing my books by category and specific topic. After Merry died my library began to grow and grow and expand into every room, closet, storage space, attic space.
Here is an example of how they are CLUSTERED (not necessarily organized alphabetically) from room to room.
This idea was inspired by one of my professors on my doctoral committee. She too had a vast library or libraries for each of her areas of interest. After her husband died and her two children moved out she began sorting her vast collections of books by topic by room.
Over the past 10 years I have not been that organized except that I do put the books in the specific rooms or closets or in banker boxes by topic.
from 1964 onward my working in 8 careers totally influenced by reading and book buying.
8 careers - professions areas of zealous commitment
plus hobbies became why I bought and read books:
cartooning (since I began traveling around the world I began buying favorite cartoonists in each country
writing: various types of writing, various books about writing: humor, mystery, business, travel, etc.
Stories/Storytelling (as a teenager I began buying books of stories from around the world and did while I was traveling to new countries until 2014). In the Summer of 1984 when Merry and I first attended two workshops in Jonesborough, Tenn at the center for NAPPS - National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling and then attended our first SOS Winter Festival in December in Atlanta I began buying books (audio tapes, cds, dvds) of the various storytellers I liked from around the US and about storytelling and story writing.
training: when I began training in 1980 I began buying and writing books about: leadership, communication, teamwork, negotiation, conflict, diversity and other business topics that have been hot since then that clients hired me to speak and/or train on.
architecture: began buying these when I was studying architecture at LIT 62-66 and beyond while I worked as an architect thru to 1983
art and art history: began buying those while working on degrees B.A. and M.F.A. and considered leaving architecture for teaching design, art and art history, which I did from 1980 to 1984
graphics and varied design professions: these I began buying when I was working on a degree in Advertising at WSU and then my masters in visual communication when I left Gunnar Birkerts office and architecture for a couple years.
teaching: when I began working with the 23 academically gifted children at Plumosa Elementary School in Delray Beach I once again became obsessed with learning about teaching and learning which led me to work on 5 degrees in Education, completed two: M.Ed. Guidance and Counseling of Gifted, Talented and Creative individuals and my PhD in Educational Psychology focused on the Teaching and Training of Creative Thinking Traits, Skills and Tools
speaking: been speaking full time since 1984 and have bought many on various aspects of the profession and business
gardening: while I was actively gardening from 1986 to 1998
walking: when I began seriously walking while traveling in 1977 and then again when I began walking for health in 1995.
I live in what I have called my
TREEHOUSE OF BOOKS
now for 31 years
My thinking style typically is highly divergently intuitive which tends to impact how I organize my life and things in my life.
FILE by PILE (out of sight, out of mind)
when the PILES get too BIG I put them on shelves or in files
when the SHELVES or FILES overflow I BOX them by topic
When the BOX overflows I fill other BOXES
then I PILE THE BOXES
then I FILL ROOMS or STORAGE SPACES by topic
my life of design prevents me from allowing CHAOS for very long
yet my obsessiveness of living in the moment and my mood plus doing new things has led me to simply pile and put out of sight what I am not willing to devote hours to ANALLY organizing so that anyone who MIGHT visit me does not see my true DESIGNER version of HOARDING.
Here is how my CREATIVITY ROOM now looks in its state of
CLUSTERED CHAOS.
From 1986 to 1998 I had everything much more organized by
pile
shelf
file drawer
filing cabinet
closet
storage area
attic space
room
Since then and as I became more and more electronic I stopped spending much time anally organize my STUFF.
About 10 years ago I became aware of my
BUYING FAR MORE THAN
I ACTUALLY READ FROM COVER TO COVER.
I had become oblivious to how much I spent on books
BUYING
while not
ALWAYS READING THEM COMPLETELY.
Then 5 or 6 years ago I became more frugal about buying paperback or hard cover books in print and began buying Kindle and other electronic or pdf format books.
That got out of hand.
One day I remember ordering 18 or more electronic books about creative thinking through Kindle plus downloading many FREE out of date novels.
During the next week I scanned the latest and hottest creativity books and found most to be very badly written and very poor content.
That is when I went from reading 5 books a week on an average as I had been reading since 1970 when I took my first Evelyn Wood Speed-reading course to seldom finishing ONE is a week to two weeks now.
I took the Evelyn Wood Course to help me with my reading in graduate school and then in preparation for the 7 NCARB - National Council of Architectural Registration Boards LICENSE EXAMS from 1967 to 1972 when I passed the last of the 7.
When Merry and I met in 1978 we took the AMERICAN SPEEDREADING course to help her prepare for the GRE test for acceptance to graduate school at FAU.
From 1970 to 1980 I retook the Evelyn Wood course a few times for FREE to reboot my speed. At least that was the excuse or reason I used.
I use some of those techniques for reading non-fiction not for FICTION. The study and scan techniques the EW courses teach are very helpful for studying and refreshing your memory
NOT FOR ENJOYING WHAT YOU READ.
One of my mentors as a trainer and professional speaker I worked with from 1984 to 1986 had a course: book and audio tape series titled:
HOW TO READ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IN 15 MINUTES.
Actually the WALL STREET JOURNAL is designed for fast reading actually compared to any other newspaper or magazine.
Many years ago I was a fan of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
One episode has become very prophetic of my life, especially the last 10 years.
Burgess Meredith was the actor in the episode. He was the first non-star actor or character actor whose name I remembered then.
His character was an obsessive reader.
He always had a book with him.
He read every time he could.
His wife was depicted as a SHREW, always yelling at him, always controlling him. But he controlled his BREAK-TIMES at work. He controlled his LUNCH TIMES. He controlled quiet times when he wasn't home or his wife was not around or asleep.
He READ, READ, READ.
From 1960 onward that was basically me.
He worked in a large bank and would read in the vault on his lunch hours EVERY DAY.
One day while he was in the vault an atomic bomb hit killing everyone but HIM in his town. The food and water was okay. The bomb left only him alive.
After he got over the initially shock and excitement that his SHREW of a wife was GONE he had the idea that
NOW I CAN READ ALL THE TIME.
"There is no one to stop me".
So he gathers up ALL the books in his town, organizes them by topic into piles in the order he would read them.
The final scene showed him walking down the steps of the entrance to a large building, perhaps the bank or the library to begin reading.
Hit trips and stumbles. His glasses fall off and he steps on them destroying them making it impossible with his very poor eyesight to ever read again.
Metaphorically that has happened in my life emotionally over the past 10 years for many reasons.
I have all the time in the world to read and I no longer typically have the motivation or interest and perhaps the ability to focus long enough now. Perhaps as an after effect of my 4+ weeks behind bars.
If I was actively speaking, training, teaching and writing I might READ, READ, READ again.
as you can tell.....writing I can do....IN SPURTS like this at least.
Reading I don't seem to have the drive or patience or desire or need to any more.
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