More Musings from the Daughter of a Mad Book Collector

My last entry focused on the IKEA bookcase which leans in an inebriated fashion in our living room. A month or so ago we found ourselves buying a new bookcase – this time, and in order to avoid paying the extortionate delivery costs, from Argos. The bookcase is handsome enough and, at only £19.99, pretty good value. The purchase became necessary owing to the number of books I had accumulated since discovering I was pregnant last July, and the books I had bought since the birth of my beautiful son, Tristan.

The first of this three part post will, I hope, offer some guidance to anyone daunted by the number of books about pregnancy, while the second part – which is much more fun – will be about the beginnings of my baby book library.  Having had very little sleep over the past five months, the final part will survey the books  which, all with the compulsory picture of a perfectly contented baby in a dream-like state on the cover, attempt (to give it away from the outset, I would say unsuccessfully) to get your child to sleep through the night.

Part One: Nine Women Can’t Make a Baby in One Month: Books about Pregnancy

I am sure I wasn’t alone in desperately searching for the perfect book to get me through my pregnancy and, within a few days of seeing the two red lines appear on my pregnancy test, I was off shopping. I didn’t even know where such books could be found in Waterstone’s and, found myself wandering round aimlessly until I stumbled across bookshelf after bookshelf tucked away in the Childrens’ Department.

Of course books play a secondary role compared to the internet and, despite the doctor telling me on my very first appointment not to rely on the web to diagnose all the pains, sores, aches and nausea which I would inevitably experience, I found that I couldn’t help myself. Google’s search engine dealt more than adequately with my requests for information, and I rarely even had to type in the word ‘pregnancy’ as from merely entering ‘8 weeks …’ or ‘pain on left side …’ Google assumed that I must be wanting to know what on earth the faint red line was that was slowly working its way from my belly button in all directions, or wondering why for the first time in my entire life I didn’t feel like eating a custard cream.

Anyway, back to books. I didn’t find the book I wanted on that first visit, but my problem was solved when I found my husband had ordered ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ from Amazon and we discovered, to our absolute delight, that Tristan was already the size of a blueberry. In the weeks that followed and, as a result of this book close to hand, we could happily browse Sainsbury’s and pick up the very fruit or vegetable that the growing foetus could be compared to, and place it next to my tummy. Even when he was the size of a melon and shopping trips for me became more of an ordeal than a pleasure, we both squealed with delight when we found the comparable food (n.b. At 7 months, Tristan is currently not even half the weight of the world’s largest sweet potato which weighed in at 24lbs.)

The book had other uses too and, for each symptom that appeared, I could look through the books’ index and find out that what I was experiencing was perfectly normal or, if it wasn’t, I would resort to the internet again and discover at least a dozen discussion sites devoted to the subject. So ‘What to Expect …’ was never too far away. The only trouble with the book and, being an art historian you can perhaps sympathise with me, was that there weren’t any pictures at all. One of the most enjoyable things about being pregnant (and there were very few in my case) was trying to imagine the baby growing inside me. This was when Anne Deans’ The Pregnancy Bible came in handy. Lent to me by a friend, this tome had colour photographs throughout of, not only the rapidly expanding child with alien features, but also of a tummy which, until the final 10 weeks, was significantly more impressive than mine.

Still the very best book was undoubtedly The Best Friends’ Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Lovine which my sister had sworn by. I didn’t actually care very much for this book until the final month when I read it more or less from cover to cover. Because of Lovine I decided not to get my hair cut (she advises against attempting a new look during pregnancy as you’re doomed to looking rubbish most of the time anyway) and, in those final few days when I was literally pulling out strands of my unkempt hair, it made us chuckle as the author described the moment when I would wake in the middle of the night and calmly announce ‘darling, it’s time’ (actually this isn’t far off what happened as, unlike in Eastenders when the actresses crumple up in the middle of the square in agony when labour starts, I only had mild cramps at the outset). She describes the process of childbirth fairly candidly (I’m afraid that I didn’t have much time for Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth in which she basically says that, with the right techniques, all you’ll feed in childbirth is a slight tingling effect as the baby pops out).

In conclusion I would say that the very best guide to pregnancy, and the one that it’s worth having on your bedside table in case you can’t make it out of bed in the morning, is The Pregnancy Book which is published by the NHS, and should be given to you by your midwife on your first visit. Although the photo of a woman with stretch marks was a bit horrifying, the book tells you everything that will or could happen and, best of all, is completely free. It’s also useful for listing up to date information about all the benefits that you can claim, and has a chart detailing what to expect during each check-up.

The Leaning IKEA Bookcase - Further Musings from the Daughter of a Mad Book-collector

My IKEA bookcase (model 'Vallvik') used to stand tall and straight in the entrance hall of my small Manchester apartment. When I walked through the door after a day’s work I would be greeted by six shelves of heavy duty art books that I had accumulated throughout my curatorial career. Working at Tate Britain we were given three free catalogues each year and, by making sure that all the books I took out of the Tate Library were returned on time, the librarian treated me with a certain amount of favouritism and gave me first pick of any duplicates which were sent to the Gallery. I soon amassed a huge collection of monographs and exhibition catalogues – characteristically of art books they had heavy-duty paper with spines a good two inches thick. I arranged them in the bookcase by artist and then by exhibition catalogue and, when I was feeling very methodical, by art movement. Gradually the shelves swelled with books and the ornaments I had arranged on the middle shelf were moved into a box so that more books could take their place. The IKEA bookcase is particularly good for its tall shelves – art books tend to tower over every other genre. In this age of austerity when everything from chocolate bars to tins of sweetcorn are getting smaller art books continue to get bigger and bigger, and no exhibition is complete without a doorstop of a fully illustrated book.


Now installed in my Cambridge house the bookshelf can no longer cope with the heavyweight glossy paper so desired by publishers of art and auction catalogues and, as the photo shows, it impressively leans to one side. Attempting to move it back to the centre the bookcase creaks as if in tremendous distress. I’ve also given up a bit on my ordering and numerous books are out of order – reference books rub shoulders with catalogues published by the giants of the art publishing world, Taschen and Thames & Hudson. Yet I feel confident that the bookcase will continue to support my library until we move house again. In the meantime I will exercise a certain amount of caution and listen out for any signals of anguish from the wooden shelves.


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The Pleasure of Bookcases

A library may be defined as a collection of books, but unless these are heaped in piles on the floor, it is, of necessity, a collection also of bookcases. A bookcase has been defined, somewhat prosaically, as a piece of furniture used to store books. Further, this will almost always be a system of horizontal shelves with books standing upright with their spines facing outwards. This has not always been the case as the book has evolved from the papyrus roll to the modern codex and conventions for shelving have suffered similar adaptation. To those thirsting for more, the story has never been better told than in J W Clark's magisterial "The Care of Books", whilst a more accessible version is provided in Henry Petroski's "The Book on the Bookshelf".





Musing on such matters prompted me to take a tour of our own library and try to summarise how the bookcases and shelves in our house have responded to the constant influx of books over a reading life.


This series of articles began with the Wernicke bookcase of my childhood. There are four such bookcases in the house, with their up and over glass windows and these are good for housing self-contained special collections (in our case, Bronte, Ruskin and ghost stories).





The problem with most Wernicke bookcases is that their shelf sizes tend to limit their contents to octavo and small quarto volumes. Larger books need something different and we found this, initially, in a Victorian mahogany bookcase, which had a wonderfully deep and high bottom shelf and several narrower shelves.


However the time came when our books demanded something more than second-hand bookcases, however elegant, and so we embarked on building our own shelving, from floor to ceiling in, first, a room dedicated to books and, now, in several rooms and corridors. These shelves are exclusively built from planks of parana pine with shelves supported from the uprights by simple metal brackets.








To avoid shelves sagging under the books, wood of order one inch thick is needed with shelf spans never more than four feet. Now, the shelves can be spaced according to the books, a bibliophile's dream! As to shelf width 9 inches is normally fine; we, do, however, use 12 inches for one of the bays, for larger volumes and 6 inches for paperbacks and our collection of 'World's Classics'.





Another input to our book space came when the Carnforth Bookshop closed its short-lived branch on Church Street, Lancaster, when, as the shop was being cleared, we hired a van and took some of their shelving (we also have some Borders shelving,following their recent demise in the UK).


In recent years, we have become aware of the excellent IKEA Billy Bookcases and several of these have migrated from the local store into our house. A great attribute of these is that you can affix glass doors to them and they do then present a very handsome appearance, particularly several side by side.





Again, with adjustable shelf height and deep shelves there are not many book sizes that they cannot accommodate. I have mixed feelings about books behind glass, but on balance keeping dust away from a book is probably the single greatest act of kindness you can bestow on a cherished volume. Books on open shelves require dusting along their top surfaces at least once a year to prevent build up of mould. And just in case you think I am paranoid see "The Enemies of Books", by William Blades.


It only remains to draw attention to one or two of the other bookcases that live in odd corners and accommodate particular micro-collections.

Deep library shelving, with adjustable height using Tonk's Studs ....





A rotating bookcase, perfect for Baedecker and Thorough Guides ....


Another rotating bookcase ......


And yet one more ......


A 1960's 'White Wood' bookcase from Heelas in Reading (the first bookcase we actually bought ....)


And finally a display cabinet, with the upper part used for a small special collection.


The question may arise as to what happens when literally there is no space for a single extra book, let alone bookcase. Moving is probably the best fix.

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