bookshelf snoopery

Never trust anyone whose TV is bigger than their book shelf
- Emilia Clarke

i am completely—and unapologetically—someone who delights in exploring the rich and opulent vistas of a bookshelf. handy for seeking out titles that interest me enough to look a little further into their substance.

show me an article / blog post / instagram reel / pin / room in someone's home that has bookshelves in it and one of the first things i’ll do is get closer to gleefully peruse the books that are on display.

a few recent online discoveries //

• A post by Òr skye on instagram led me to Seaweed : Foraging, Collecting, Pressing by Melanie Molesworth and Julia Bird. I've used up the last remaining $ of a gift voucher and ordered this today. I can't wait to dive into it.
• An online book review, and subsequent conversation with a friend led me to The Axeman’s Carnvial by Catherine Chidgey. This I borrowed from the library and really enjoyed. Written from the perspective of a magpie that is rescued and lives inside the farmer's house. One of my sisters, when she first started farming, tended for a young magpie and, though the story is quite different from anything in her experience, I thought of her as I read this book.
• Another instagram post led me to the poetry of MAIA and her self-published book called When the Waves Come
• A bookshelf in an article about small cabins reminded me that it’s a long time since i’ve read The Waves by Virginia Woolf
• On another shelf, in an article entitled ‘How to Read More’, there was a stack of books i’ve already read that i’d like to read again… like The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
• And finally, on a blogger’s list of favourite books for the year, i discovered shelves laden with many of the same books i’ve hosted on my own. so i am confident that i will also enjoy reading their recommendations of Severance by Ling Ma, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

are you also a snooper?

what’s something you’ve discovered using this method that you might not have found otherwise?