So I had this brilliant idea to change my header. Inspired by the old school books already there I imagined gathering up books from my library and arranging them together with two bookends. The books would be favourite books, featuring my fave authors and genres all at once and the bookends would further this idea.

It isn’t easy to sum yourself up in one image, even with a great array of books. After a lot of thought and fussing I finally selected my winners.

However the picture didn’t look anywhere near as cool as I had hoped. The image did do the job of perfectly showing my eclectic taste, but it looks too messy.

So, since I put so much effort in, but am ultimately no longer planning on using the picture I’m going to post it here for you to look at so see how well a picture of a bookshelf can sum a person up.

If you can list all the books gathered here (and the name of the girl who is the left bookend) without reading the list below we need to get in contact with each other, because you might just be my soul mate (in a non-romantic way obviously, since I’m happily married).

The planned header

The figurine standing as a bookend on the left is of Rin from Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal manga series.  The books are (from left to right):

The English translation of ‘Atelier Chronicle’, an art book covering most of the Atelier series of video games,

Kaz Cooke’s Kidwrangling, my child raising bible due to its openness, funniness and the fact it will offer multiple options, not just ‘let your kid cry themselves to sleep’,

Stephen King’s On Writing,

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. As if there could possibly be a better author combo in the world!

‘Tortall and other Lands’ Tamora Pierce’s short story collection. I picked it because otherwise I’d have to try and fit in one of her quartets and that would take up too much space,

The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks, a favourite from my youth,

David & Leigh Eddings ‘The Pawn Of Prophecy’ the first fantasy book I read,

Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle. Do I need to explain the awesomeness that is this book?

Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody, a book that moved me so deeply it started me writing fantasy(before that I wrote Goosebumps inspired horror and childhood slice of life/adventure). I wish I had the copy I first read, but early 20’s Kirstie handed it in to a second hand bookstore.

The BBC’s ‘Dalek survival Guide’ because I am an unabashed Whovian,

Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wolfman and Perez’s ground breaking DC release. I originally considered putting a Teen Titans comic there, since they were what started me on American comics, but none of them had the title or artists near the bottom, only the DC logo.

Gate 7, CLAMP’s new title. I am a mad CLAMP fangirl, 20+ artbooks (and that NOT counting the 15th anniversary CLAMP no kiseki artbook series), just about every translated series, and 30+ figurines.

With The Light, by Keiko Tobe, I don’t need to explain this if you’ve been reading my blog for long. Just go here and here.

Battle Angel Alita, Last Order vol 7, by Yukito Kishiro. I love this series, madly. My passion is primarily for the characters. I selected this volume in particular because if a hilarious story behind it. I won’t waste space on that story here, but if you ask nicely I’ll probably tell you it in the comments.

From Far Away by Kyoko Hikawa, a beautiful cross-dimensional manga,

Honey and Clover by Chica Umino, a magnificent slice of life josei manga. I use a picture of one of the characters as my profile image still in various places around the net (including my gravatar),

Aquarium by Tomoko Taniguchi, one of my absolute favourite manga-ka

A notebook, because it’s a writer’s staple of life.

And lying underneath it all the art book for Kiki’s Delivery Service, my second favourite Studio Ghibli movie. My favourite is Whispers of the Heart, but I haven’t been able to find the art book 🙁

Wrapping it up with the right side book end, a family of maneki-nekos I bought from the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo.

How many were you already familiar with? Do you have any pictures that sum you up well?