Don't be shelf-ish

"I imagine each section, as its own book club where a title relates to the ones around it, clustering authors that would have a lot to discuss among themselves." 

--Friend of the blog Peter W. Knox on what your bookshelves do when you're not around. Knox describes to the Guardian about the impetus that led him to start Share Your Shelf, a Tumblr of picture of other people's bookshelves. 

Describing my home shelf philosophy would take too long for now, but since I'm at the office, here's my work shelf. I might be breaking protocol here because this shelf is probably the most decorative of any collection of books I now have.

I have read every book on this shelf except THE MCSWEENEY'S BOOK OF POLITICS & MUSICALS (which just came out), but apart from the two style manuals, I never refer to these books for my job. (I work in social media. Make your own print media joke here.) So this shelf is more an outcropping of my work personality -- although I would recommend the Della Femina book (FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR, 3rd from right) and the collected works of Marshall McLuhan for anyone who works or interacts with online media. DIGITAL BARBARISM is a polemic about online content and copyright that I didn't wholly agree with, but it reminds me that my job a) didn't exist five years ago, and b) is still regarded with suspicion and outright rejection by some of the people I serve, so go easy, all right? 


(Also, please enjoy my collection of teas. It's super cold in here!)