Shelf-diagnosis

Shelf-diagnosis: "Emin would hardly qualify, therefore, for inclusion in a slim volume I received recently, entitled Lunacy and the Arrangement of Books. It was sent by “Irishman, Exile, and Bookseller” Brian Walsh. But it was written by another book-dealer, an American, Terry Belanger. And it is, in essence, a short history of the methodologies by which noted bibliophiles have arranged their collections.
Not all were lunatics, despite the title. Take Alistair Cooke, of Alistair Cooke’s America fame. It seems only right that, according to Belanger, his New York apartment had a floor-to-ceiling collection on his favourite subject, arranged geographically.
The books about New England were in the upper right corner; California was lower left; etc. No doubt there was some spatial revisionism in between – the corn-belt states hardly took up much room in these United Shelves of America, whereas Massachusetts must have been vast. But the arrangement was sensible."



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