The Unexpected Unpacking Of Books

The books are all unpacked.

I had not necessarily intended to unpack all of the books - my thought was to unpack some, put them out, unpack more, put them out, etc.  A rather leisurely affair - after all, I was in no hurry to remove them, and being in boxes - even if the boxes were a bit battered - allowed them to be appropriately stacked. 

And then I opened a box.  And there is was, a bent book.

Useful background:  I am probably what qualifies as a book fanatic.  It is not just that I read, it is that I take the condition of books very seriously.  Books were always, always treated well in my house.  One did not fold back pages to mark one's place, one used a book mark.  Covers and dust covers were maintained.  The only potential acceptable damage allowable to a book was wearing on the spine of a paperback, due to either overuse or sweat from reading them when you held them.

So when I opened up the box and found the books haphazardly placed in there, you can imagine what went through my mind.  Worse, I actually found books with bent back covers or bent spines.

Radical action was called for.

And so I unpacked every box of books, something like an additional 25 boxes beyond what I had anticipated unpacking.  There was some bending of spines and covers, and an unnerving moment when I could not find books I anticipated to find there (good news; it was just in a box somewhere else).  But overall, most of the books made it there in one piece.

Then, of course, came the placing of the books upon the shelves.

The good news is that with one exception - the bookshelf we lost in the move - everything fits on the shelves.  There was only one type of book - science fiction/paperbacks, mostly Andre Norton and C.J. Cheyrrh - that had to be double stacked, which I always consider a bit undesirable (books should always be fully displayed), but otherwise everything is single shelf, facing out.  My organization, of course, is completely off and I have no methodology to fix that now - my science fiction, the last box I pulled out, is scattered across five different shelves when it should be one - but that is pretty minor stuff by comparison.

Looking at them on the shelf now, it is pretty readily apparent that I should do nothing but focus on re-reading everything here before I even think of getting something new.  There is, literally, nowhere to put anything new and in that sense, I suffer from an abundance of riches.