Magic Bookshelves

I have magic bookshelves. Black magic, that is. They are like overgrown gardens. Every time I weed out the books that I’m not going to read again, others sprout up to take their places. It gets so bad that shelves break under the weight of the books, as happened Friday. Then there was the flood of 2008, when books that were above the water line fell off the shelves and were ruined because the books below them became waterlogged, expanded, and blew the bookcases apart.

Fortunately, I do have a white magic bookshelf. It’s called a Kindle, and it can hold an unlimited number of books. (That’s probably not technically true, but I haven’t reached the limit yet.) It also ensures that I don’t run out of reading material on vacation.

I love my Kindle.

Even so, there are times when I purchase good old-fashioned hard copies. Sometimes it’s because I buy the copy at a writer’s conference. Or maybe the book I want isn’t available on Kindle or the paperback is a lot cheaper than the electronic version.

At other times, I want to mark in the book and refer back to the marked passages from time to time, whether as research for my current work in progress or because the book inspires my writing. I can do the mark-up with the Kindle, but I find it easier with a hard copy book.

So what I really need is a magic bookcase for hard copies that expands when it gets full but doesn’t take up any additional room in my already crowded office. Preferably, the shelves would also strengthen themselves when loaded with heavy books.

Does anybody have one of those to sell?