Shelving
One scale to another
In the early days of summer this year, I wrote a bit about changing the name of this site to Brookeshelves. I still feel like I’m in the early stages of the shift in knowledge management that prompted that change.
When I’m in the very initial stages of a product, I’m most interested in gathering information. I’m pretty indiscriminate about where that information comes from, too. I tend to read widely, and to hold myself open to taking things as they come and where they lead. At a certain point, though, to use a metaphor that I did today with my writing group, the cup begins to run over. You can keep pouring water into it, but you lose as much in the overflow as you’re putting in.
Over the past 2+ years now, I’ve been writing on this site fairly regularly, collecting potential epigraphs in a couple of notes files, reading and bookmarking a lot of online essays (I’ve saved close to 800 (!!) of them in Reader). My cup’s getting pretty full, and I’ve reached the point where I don’t always remember what I’ve written about, what I’ve read, etc. A brain is only going to hold so much at once.
When I changed the name of this site, it was a symbolic gesture on my part, a personal shifting from one scale (“taking notes towards a potential book project”) to another (“actively working on a book project”). But that process is more than symbolic, and it has to take place (for me, at least) both across time and space. I’ve begun fiddling with a new writing tool (Craft!) with the idea of building up a tentative book outline, I picked up a couple of new notebooks, etc. My workflow needs to change a bit more, though, before I’ll feel like I’ve delivered on the promise of this site’s new name and orientation.
This is going to seem pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like an important step for me today. It’s been almost two years since I discovered (and began recommending) bookshop.org. It’s an Amazon alternative, and what’s maybe best about it is that they donate money from every purchase to independent bookstores. Shortly after I learned about the site, I began using bookshop links whenever I cite others’ books in my Substack episodes.
This week, I learned that Bookshop has begun expanding their affiliate program, allowing users to set up their own “stores,” where purchases will continue to support independent bookstores but they will also provide a cut to the page owner as well. And so, Brookeshelves now has its own affiliate shop on the site.
I’m not expecting to rake in the dollars or anything, believe me. What was most exciting to me about this was the chance to provide a new layer of organization for the work that I’m doing here. If you visit my shop, you’ll find two categories of books: those which I’ve reviewed, and those which I’ve referenced. When you “View All” on the list I’ve reviewed, you’ll be taken to a page listing all 18 of the books I’ve reviewed here (with URLs for the reviews themselves). Honestly, it was interesting to go back through my archive today and set this up.
The reference list will be much longer eventually, but it’s going to take me some time to build it up, I’m sure, as I have more than 150 entries to work through and compile. But my hope is that, moving forward, I can just work this into my workflow. And eventually, I may add a couple of additional lists, maybe an evolving to-read list and a slowly growing secret syllabus (which I’ve written about on occasion).
But I find myself disproportionately pleased today with the opportunity to take a small step back from my Substacking to see the network of books and ideas that’s unfolding here. I’m back to McGilchrist after this, but I thought I’d share a quick intermission while I work on those. More soon.