So, on my bookshelf at work I have a bunch of work related stuff (Six Sigma, Stats, Edward Tufte, Tech books). And a corner of the world devoted to “things I finished and left at work.” I suspect others may have the same. So here it is…what non work books do you have at work…and what does that say about you.
The books I have:
Diane Wood Middlebrook, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton
Dashiell Hammett, The Continental Op
Kathryn Harrison, The Binding Chair
Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War
Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys
Margaret Atwood, A Handmaids Tale
Most of my coworkers are pretty clueless, to them this means I read. I look at the collection and think “what odd things to keep at work of all places.”
I’d rather see this than cubicles stuffed to capacity with Beanie Babies, dolls, and other collectible crap I see at work. Some of the cubicles are quite small and yet every cubic inch has something cute and fuzzy sitting on it.
I’m an English teacher, so my room is filled with too many books to list. However, I have a strict rule aobut taking books I am reading for straight pleasure to work because while I am as hard a working person as can be, I have no will power regarding books that I am reading and will, if they are at work, start looking for busy work I can assign so that I can sit behind my desk and read. Furhtermore, when I read I get so absorbed that my studeents could start having a herion-and-anal sex orgy and I wouldn’t notice.
Well, I have a PDA, a Palm M500 and have all of my webscription books on chips, so I have everything that Baen has up in Webscriptions.net in both the free library and the stuff for sale…so in all the threads about what you are reading in the bathroom, or on your reading list…there is your answer=) My PDA goes wherever I go=)
When I worked for State Farm, the last year there after they had dissolved the customer service division here in CT I was working in one of the satelite offices while they were reorganizing the business structure. We had computers with internet access, so I used to read ebooks online as it looked more professional to be ‘working on the computer’ when people walked past rather than sitting there reading treewares=) On really slow saturdays we could get away with throwing DVDs into the computers and cranking the volume down to minimum=)
On my desk here at home, I have Milla Davenport The Book of Costume, a compilation of reprints of medieval and renaissance cookery books put out by David Friedman, Lois Bujold The Curse of Chalion, a decent german/english dictionary, a decent french/english dictionary and a crappy spanish/english dictionary, though I am currently watching the musical 1776 in japanese=) [friend of mine was stationed in Japan and sent it to me as a joke=)]
Since I work in a museum, my shelves are packed with books on the history of social customs, development of technologies, costume, plumbing, cooking, toys, corsets, mourning ettiquette, medicines, Native American trade routes, fashion accessories, dining habits, military insignias, furniture styles, period literature, and a myriad of other things. (I just love delving into the obscure aspects of cultures-- you can learn so much about people from the smallest nuances of behavior.) Sometimes, on a slow day, I’ll pull out one of these books and get lost in it for a couple of hours.
Heh. I have a pile of George R. R. Martin books that I was sharing with a co-worker who quit, a book on Norse mythology, Phineas Finn (darned if I am spelling that right) which I need to finish so I can get on with the rest of the Palliser novels), a novel by Edward Bulwer Lytton that’s a lot drier than the Trollope so probably won’t get finished, and a few books on teaching myself Irish (which I turn out not to be very good at without some kind of pronunciation coach.) Oh, and a lovely book that is just a collection of Sandman covers. Very pretty, not much reading in it.
For comparison, the books I have for work are SAS statisical programming language course texts, and beginner’s guides to statistics and so forth.
What the books I have that aren’t work related probably say is that I can’t seem to finish 19th century political novels, and I have a taste for fantasy. I need to bump Phineas to the top of my reading list again soon.
Well there’s the usual reference books like the dictionary, thesaurus, Secretarial Handbook, The Complete Book of Contemporary Business Letters, The Elements of Style, 2004 AP Style guide, and Key Map.
I’m probably forgetting some because I am home and not looking but also:
Sophie’s World - it’s a novel, but it’s about philosophy. It came out about the time I graduated from high school. I’m re-reading it in short bits.
Time and Again - left at my desk after finished reading. It was a gift from a boarder on another board though she posts here too.
Corelli’s Mandolin - read it and left it at the office because the one I took home was from a drawer of waiting to be read books:
A Brillant Solution - it’s about the making of the Constitution.
Mayflower Bastard
Savage Girls and Wild Boys
Beloved Emma
There’s some novels too, but I can’t recall the titles and being a saturday I am not going to go look.
I have They Fought Like Demons and A Girl Named Zippy too Dangerosa but I think they are here at the house on the To Be Read shelf.
I also have Seven Habits, Seven Habits for teens and First Things First but I loaned two of them out. I sure hope they find their way home.