Brad's bookshelves

"The bookshelf in our house was made by my father. He's an electrician by trade but has always enjoyed woodworking as a hobby. He also made our coffee table (not pictured).

Top Shelf: This is the cartoons, graphic novels and art shelf. Lots of Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes. Sprinkled in are some instructional books on print making, watercolor and encaustic. Encaustic is pigmented bees wax which is melted and brushed onto a sturdy surface.

2nd from Top: Speaking of encaustics, this shelf has 4 examples of it from the class I took over the summer. These are painted on ceramic tiles and cardboard. Behind them are books on architecture. Some are written by architects, some are about architects and some are technical steel manuals. My wife and I met while earning our degrees in architecture; after a great purge of text books this is all that remains.

3rd from Top: Behind my painting of atomic bomb explosions are fiction and non fiction books. Topics include famous people, religion, food policy, dystopian science fiction and polar exploration. Also featured is "Wormface", a re-purposed children's book from the thrift store. This shelf also has a civil war bullet and family picture albums.

4th from Top: Science fiction and fantasy mostly. A jar of pebbles which I don't know the significance of and a Bible. There's also an empty x-acto blade box.

Bottom 2 shelves: This is a portion of my board game collection. I tend to put my favorites here that have nice artwork or impressive (often historical) subject matter, like the Cold War (Twilight Struggle), the Austrian Succession (Maria) and the French and Indian War (A Few Acres of Snow).

On the Chair: A small pile of books I just finished about Shackleton's expedition that I haven't figured out how to fit on the shelf yet.

Boxes/binders on floor to the left: I have no idea what these contain."