Sunday Shelfie with Dr Sharon Blackie
If you are new to Sunday Shelfie, let me just introduce you to the concept; every other Sunday I ask a guest author to snap photographs of their bookshelves and answer a list of probing questions about them. So far, during the series, we have heard from
and I did also share my own bookshelves right at the beginning of the series.This week, I am thrilled to say that I have one of my favourite writers both in print and on Substack here to show you her bookshelves, it’s
.
Sharon is an award-winning and internationally bestselling writer and a psychologist with a background in mythology and folklore. She is the author of several books including If Women Rose Rooted: A Life Changing Journey to Authenticity and Belonging, Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life, The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday, and a her novel, The Long, Delirious Burning Blue. This week sees the publication of her sixth book which I am very excited about: Wise Women: Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond.
Plus, as if all this wasn’t enough, she also has one of the best substacks on this platform, The Art of Enchantment, which you can find here.
So, what we really want to do is have a nose around her bookshelves, right? And here they are, or at least some of them:
How would you describe your collection of books? Any favourite genres?
Like most writers, I suspect, I have a profoundly eclectic collection. Downstairs in the living room, there’s a wall of novels, poetry, memoir and nature writing; the shelves in the photograph, which are in my small study, are more writing- and work-related. So this is my collection of psychology books, Jungian and post-Jungian works, mythology, folklore and fairy tales. Well, it’s part of that collection; truth is, I have books all over the place, and there are piles on my desk of books I’m working with at that moment.
Thinking about the collection as a whole, what’s interesting to me are the books that I haven’t been able to give up and that have travelled around the world with me – because I’ve lived in a good few countries since I first left home for university. There’s a small collection of well-travelled novels (many with those iconic dark green Virago spines) which I’ve had for over forty years, as well as a small collection of poetry books that date back to the same time. I think the oldest of those books would be Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, which my mother gave to me when I was eight years old.
How many books do you estimate you have and how are they organised, if at all?
That’s really hard to estimate or to count, precisely because they’re everywhere. Getting on for a couple of thousand, though, at least.
In percentage terms, how many of the total books on your shelves have you read?
Probably around 90%, including reference and academic books which are more to be referred to than read cover-to-cover. If I don’t plan to read a book, or to finish it, I’ll pass it on to someone else sooner rather than later. Otherwise I’d be overrun!
Which three books are top of your TBR (To Be Read) pile at the moment?
1. I picked up Kathleen Jamie’s latest, Cairn, in a local bookstore recently. It’s a book of ‘personal notes, prose poems, micro-essays, fragments’. I like fragments, so I’m really looking forward to this one.
2. A little light reading: I loved Sophie Keetch’s Morgan Is My Name, a reimagining of the story of Morgan Le Fay. It’s so hard to do Arthurian well without being twee, but she manages it. The second in the trilogy, Le Fay, has just landed. I’m looking forward to a rainy Sunday when I can settle down on the sofa, start it in the morning and finish it by the end of the day.
3. Benjamin Myers’ Cuddy has been in the pile too long; I’m looking forward to getting stuck in. It’s ‘a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England.’
Which book on your bookshelf is the most well-thumbed/do you return to the most, and why?
Hmm ... probably Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Which is on the shelf right next to my desk. They provide inspiration, of course, for my own writing. I have a huge library of folk and fairy tales, but this is probably the richest collection of stories, full of vivid images and archetypal characters.
Which book on your bookshelf do you most often buy as a gift for others, and why?
I don’t often buy books as gifts for people, to be honest; can’t remember the last time I did it. Maybe, as a writer and lover of books, I’m unusual in that, but reading matter is such a personal – and a time-consuming – choice. I’d hate to give someone a book that they then felt obliged to spend time reading so that they had an answer when I asked them whether they liked it, when really they wished they could read something else instead!
If you have a collection of writing craft books, which is your favourite and why?
I don’t have such a collection, but back in the day, when I was writing my first novel, I found Robert McKee’s Story incredibly helpful. And then, of course, there’s always the luminous Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, for a different kind of not-quite-so-craft-related inspiration about writing.
If you write within a particular genre, can you tell us your three favourite books within that genre (classic or contemporary) and why?