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<\/a>My son Reid on one of the island’s less accessible features.<\/p><\/div>
\nWe booksellers spend a good deal of time, effort and energy engaged in that noble task of influencing the titles housed on other people’s bookshelves. Yet we also take a professional interest in decoding and learning from bookshelves that we encounter in the wild. In fact, there is no respite from the exercising of our bibliographic muscles, even on vacation, or perhaps I should say especially on vacation as the books on the shelves of vacation homes are of peculiar interest.
\nVacation house bookshelves are meant to provide ambiance of course, as all domestic bookshelves do, but are also much more likely to be read by guests, and are much more like a library than the shelves of unrented homes. My wife and I spend a week every year on a Maine island we love. Indeed I am there now post-hike and pre-quaffing hour.
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\nWe had stayed at the same place the previous four years, which was very congenial and familiar but\u00a0 the vacation shelves there consequently held little intrigue. This year, however, we rented a different place and it is thus my current task to determine what I can learn from the children’s books on offer here. This house has two shelves on which kid’s books predominate, one mostly picture books and the other mainly novels. Let’s see what we can deduce from them. First the novels shelf.
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