Packing!

[osprey_archer]

One of my friends is going to shlep some of my things down to Indianapolis in advance of the move, so I am in the process of packing! I have packed my kitchen stuff - actually not that much kitchen stuff; my new roommate has a well-stocked kitchen already, but I like to have my favorite plate and my sharp terrifying knives around - my desk stuff, which is like 90% devoted to letter-writing, and I had not realized that I had that much letter paraphrenalia, wow.

I have dusted the furniture that I will be taking with me and washed sheets and blankets that have reposed two years in waiting, and in short packed pretty much everything except my clothes as I still need those -

Although I could get a jump on packing up my winter clothes. Hmm.

But no! That would just be procrastinating, for I have come upon the most difficult part of the packing process: deciding which books to pack.

Eventually the answer will be "all of them, or at least a lot of them, I'm not sure all of them would fit in my room," but first I would need to buy some bookshelves. So for now I need to decide which books will fit in my bedside table which is also a bookshelf, which is a very small number and therefore caused me much grief and woe until I realized that I should refocus my thinking on "Which books do I want to lend to my friends in Indianapolis?"

Which has simplified things! Although there are still hard choices. Of course I'm taking Code Name Verity (I hope they all like sadness), but after some waffling I decided to leave The Montmaray Journals behind: I don't have the third book in the series, because I didn't like it as much as the others, so I really can't recommend it even though I loved the third.

Or my Caroline B. Cooney books! I feel like we have outgrown the age where I can recommend Caroline B. Cooney books, like maybe you have to read them for the first time in your impressionable teens for them to work, even though Mummy is amazing and more books should feature a teenage girl with the secret heart of a jewelry thief.

...Maybe I should actually see if I can wedge Mummy in after all. You know, just in case.

I have also stuck in my entire collection of Zilpha Keatley Snyder and also The Count of Monte Cristo, although the latter is because I have decided to read it after all, because the chapters are the right length for bedtime reading. Perhaps I should switch out Jane Eyre and the Jane Austens? I feel like my roommate probably already has those, so I don't need to haul along a duplicate set. Decisions, decisions!

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I feel like we have outgrown the age where I can recommend Caroline B. Cooney books, like maybe you have to read them for the first time in your impressionable teens for them to work,

This may well be true, but they aren't half great at that point, I agree. ;-)

Good luck! Which books to take is a terrible dilemma, how can the world be so cruel? I hope you get bookshelves soon - and hope all the rest of it goes well too.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Were you a Caroline B. Cooney fan??? I read soooo many of her books. I think my favorites were Mummy and the Losing Christina series, although of course I also read The Face on the Milk Carton and at least some of its sequels. It was practically required reading.

I will have to contemplate the bookcase issue some more once I've moved in and see how much space my stuff leaves in the room. I don't want it to feel too crowded in there.

[thisbluespirit]

I loved them! I don't know that we had them all, but The Fog, The Snow, The Fire (which I think might be Losing Christina, because the heroine was called Christina?). I didn't read any of her Point Horror titles; they came along a bit late for me (and I believe The Mummy was one of those) but The Face on the Milk Carton and I'm Not Your Other Half, I think. And some of her books in the Cheerleaders series, which I quite liked at the time? I think there were a couple of others, but I can't remember, but I did like the ones I got hold of very much.

ETA: When it comes to bookcases, my ambition is to be like Elinor in Inkheart (in only this respect): She had bookcases the way other people had wallpaper. So I would just think that space is irrelevant while bookcases are essential. :lol:

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's the Losing Christina series. I always loved her tricolored hair (brown, silver, and gold! Although looking back I wonder how that prematurely silver hair looked...) and her resourcefulness and grit in the face of the monstrous Shevvingtons.

I worry that too many books might make it hard for me to sleep - perhaps I would hear them whispering on their shelves? So I might introduce the bookshelves slowly to see if the books gain critical whispering mass.

My lease also includes a linen closet, so I could perhaps put a shelf in there, but I think that the books might not like being locked away from the light and air like that.

[thisbluespirit]

I think actually she just had mouse colour hair and was fanciful about it? (I have mouse colour hair and when you look hard at a bunch of strands, it actually is a mix of those colours. Of course, now there is a LOT more silver in it!)

You may be right. Best not to let the books take over, I suppose. Maybe. ;-)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

There's a scene where a hairdresser does up the gold and silver parts of Christina's hair into banana curls, so I think she really does have special snowflake three-colored hair. I imagine that as she ages, much of the brown will change to match the silver, but there will be enough of it left that her hair will remain forever tri-colored.