Tom Pluck's Steelcase

You are looking at a Steelcase business grade shelf stacked 3 deep.

My own books and signed editions by authors I respect line the top shelf. Some are blocked out by the Escher Metamorphosis cards that I respond to letters with.

So there is a benefit to snail mail...

I cycle the books back and forth to force me to read the ones I've neglected. My TBR pile is so big I may never finish it. It just keeps getting larger as more and more fine stories by great writers are published. And then there's the e-books.

The shelf threatens to plummet through the floor on occasion, and I go on a reading binge to put it on a diet, but then someone goes and writes another damn good book and it's overweight again.

If only that were life's biggest complaint, having so many great stories waiting for me to read.

Ron Scheer's Bookshelves

You’re looking at one wall of the room I use for an office. The books across the bottom shelf on the left (plus three on top and three on the floor) are references for blogging and the book project I’m working on. The book itself in its present form is in the stacks of paper on the floor.

The rest of the books are mostly western fiction and some history. The stack between the cases is the to-read-next pile, and it hardly ever seems to sink below where it is now. About a third of that bunch are original editions of 100-year-old novels. There are more on the middle shelf of the bookcase on the right.

The framed photo on the far right is my attractive wife and copyeditor. The bears and koala are part of a collection that has followed me over the years. Charles Gramlich will recognize the framed cover of his KILLING TRAIL peeking out atop the left bookcase.

Garnett Elliott's Bookshelf

I was putting some paperbacks from storage on their new bookshelf 'home' when it occurred to me that some people might wonder why I've arranged them in the way that I have. Then I thought, "Wonder how other writers' bookshelves look as they organize their most prized worldly possessions." A couple of days later, I was corresponding with Garnett Elliott and asked him if he didn't mind sharing. Ask and ye shall receive:

Here's the "prized books" section of my bookcase, with all the hardboiled authors who have had the most influence of my writing.  Though it's hard to see, from left to right is:   Himes, Higgins ('The Friends of Eddie Coyle,' natch), Thompson, Goodis, Williams (Charles Williams--'The Hot Spot'), Chandler, Hammett, MacDonald (I've got McDonald, too, but on another shelf), Crumley, Willeford, Cain, Peter Rabe, and of course, Mojo Storyteller, Joe R. Lansdale.