Welcome to my Bookshelves: Kirsten Krauth

I used to be quite organised with my bookshelves. I used to categorise them all via publisher so those neat symbols lined up. These days my bookshelves are pretty chaotic. I moved from Sydney to Castlemaine a bit over a year now, and books are still in boxes. In Sydney, the removalist said to me, 'my god, you have a lot of books!', as if I was a lunatic, and after I'd just taken a whole bookshelf's worth to the op shop!

In pride of place is a top bookshelf that has all my autographed books. I have always been an autograph hunter. I have Germaine Greer, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Jolley, Kate Grenville. I like to meet the authors and get the books signed directly. But many are gifts that people have given me too. Also on this shelf are all my dad's books. Yes, he's a novelist...

My books are generally divided into fiction and non-fiction and sometimes I have all authors' works together, eg Murakami, because I love the black and white covers. I have a lot of books on film that I like to look at longingly.

In my bedroom I have a teetering pile on my bedside table, the 'I will write about this one day' pile, to review for blogs or newspapers.

In my bedroom the first thing I see when I wake up is the 'I will read these one day soon' bookshelf that I hoped would retain some space for new books - but seems to be overflowing already.

I take enormous pleasure in looking at my bookshelves, and others' too. I can quite happily look at them for hours. It's the combination of design, categorisation and remembering and imagining literary worlds.

One day I would like a room of bookshelves with a couch in the middle, a room designed only for reading and writing.



Kirsten Krauth's debut novel was published earlier this year.  It is called just_a_girl and you can read my review of it here.  If you don't have time, you can just take my word for it that it is fantastic!

You can read more about Kirsten on her blog, Wild Colonial Girl, which does a great service by emerging writers by featuring their work.  The world needs more Kirstens.  

You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.  

THANKS FOR PLAYING, KIRSTEN :)