Joyce Carol Oates' Bookshelves

When I was 14 or 15 I was in Florida with my folks for one of the last family vacations I would take with them. There is a bookstore there we always went to, and where I bought many books that subsequently changed my life including Isaac Asimov's Understanding Physics, The Catcher in the Rye, and Joyce Carol Oates' Where I've Been to and Where I'm Going. Not only did I discover my completely unabashed love for non fiction from this collection of essays, reviews and prose, I also fell in love with the idea of being an adult. In a nutshell, I wanted to grow up so I could have JCO's bookshelves. The way I remember the picture and the way it actually is strike me as vastly different; in my memory the shelves reach from floor to ceiling, and the perspective is of a much smaller JCO and a much bigger room. I guess I speculated the shelves as going all the way around the room, but truth be told, this might not even be her library, it could just be her den. As for reaching adulthood, if the same equation holds true I guess I'm getting there. Right now I have five bookcases of books and an equal amount if not more in stacks on the floor of my own library. We have fiction separated from non fiction and everything is alphabetized. (except for the towering mess on the floor). I still don't feel like a grown up. I guess if I was a real grown up I'd be able to afford a bigger house to put all theses books in. Maybe later.