Favourite YA and Adult Authors, Plus Some Other (Non-MG) Stuff [Bookshelf Tour 4/5]

Posted 16 October 2022 in thoughts /8 Comments

Part 1 (Tolkien) | Part 2 (New bookcases) | Part 3 (Arctic exploration, Japanese religion, assorted adult fiction and non-fiction, and a few MG faves) | Part 4 (remaining adult fiction and non-fiction, fairy tales, favourite YA and adult authors) | Part 5 (middle grade and young adult fiction)

The top two shelves of these bookcases are not perfectly, ideally organized. They were a result of the space constraints. I really thought I would have room left over with these two bookcases! But I suspect I will acquire a third if I still live here in two or three years…

Anyway, the top shelf became the catch-all stuff for books that didn’t belong much to any other grouping. Fairy tale collections ended up there. The second shelf holds favourite authors (exclusive of middle grade). I couldn’t fit all of Gaiman and Murakami there (and apparently none of Saramago), so only my favourite works made it to this shelf. It has since been rearranged a bit as I have acquired Seasonal Fears (companion to Middlegame), a hefty hardcover. A notable number of books on these two shelves were ones I read once and purchased 8-12 years ago, so my feelings on them may have changed since then. But if they are on the shelf, that means I think I would enjoy them on a reread (which I intend to do at least once in my life).

Top Shelf

Canadian and Indigenous authors (left column, minus the Gaiman)

Remaining Adult Fiction

Fairy Tales

  • Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
  • The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales translated and edited by Patrick K. Ford
  • The Arabian Nights selected and edited by Daniel Heller-Roazen, translated by Husain Haddawy, based on the text edited by Muhsin Mahdi
  • Russian Fairy Tales by Aleksandr Afanas’ev
  • The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm edited by Jack Zipes
  • The Annotated Hans Christian Anderson edited by Maria Tatar

Second Shelf

First Third

Wayward Children and Anna-Marie McLemore (Column)

Last Third

The purple mug on the top shelf is one I picked up from Anthropologie. Too bad about the handle, but it’s still a good sized mug for hot chocolate.

Which authors would you put on your favourites shelf?
Do we have any favourite books/authors in common?
Did you also go through a “I should read classic literature” phase? 😜

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8 responses to “Favourite YA and Adult Authors, Plus Some Other (Non-MG) Stuff [Bookshelf Tour 4/5]”

  1. Krysta

    I always love to see other people’s bookshelves. I don’t think mine are quite as organized as yours. It’s mainly alphabetical order, though I separated out some of the medieval and Renaissance books. I don’t think I’ve left my, “I should read more classic literature” phase!

    Reply
    • Jenna @ Falling Letters

      My guiding organizational principle has pretty much been, “How do these books vibe together?” haha.

      For some readers, enjoying classics isn’t a phase, I suppose! ;P You can see the remants of my classics phase in some of those books on the top shelf. (I think you understand I am using ‘classics’ in a fairly limited, old school sense of the word.) It was an interesting time but I have now long since accepted I am more interested in reading other stuff 😛

      Reply
      • Krysta

        I like the idea of books “vibing” together! I think it has an intuitive kind of sense. And it could be fun to see what kinds of combinations people end up with!

        I think, for me, my classics phase has shifted in that I still like classics, but I don’t feel compelled to keep reading classics and authors I don’t like. For years I kept reading Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, but I didn’t LOVE their work. But I felt like I was SUPPOSED to, and I thought if I kept trying, I would “get it” one day. Then finally I gave myself the freedom to admit I didn’t particularly enjoy their works, and I donated those books to the library. Now, I stick with classics I genuinely enjoy, and I am choosier about which ones to pick up. I don’t just pick a title up because I feel like I really ought to have read that book by now.

        Reply
  2. Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense

    What a neat look at your shelves! I don’t know many bloggers who have also read Anna-Marie McLemore’s debut, The Weight of Feathers. I still remember how that one made me feel the first time I picked it up and McLemore continues to just enchantment me with their words. I definitely went through a similar “classics are the only real books” phase. Glad that is over, haha.

    Reply
    • Jenna @ Falling Letters

      Thanks so much! I choose to read The Weight of Feathers specifically for a course I was taking on young adult literature. At that time, iirc, McLemore only had three books out and I had already read WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS and WILD BEAUTY, so I wanted to pick up the earlier title as well.

      Hear hear to RIP classics phase, haha. That phase occurred for me while I was doing a degree in children’s literature… I guess I wanted to try the old western classics and see if I was really missing out?? I found a couple titles I enjoyed but yeah, thankfully have moved on since 😛

      Reply

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