I had to leave my house for Hurricane Irma and there is a decent chance I will not have much of a house to come back to

I had to leave my house for Hurricane Irma and there is a decent chance I will not have much of a house to come back to.

I had limited space to bring books I wanted to save, so I had some decisions to make. I made my selections based mostly on sentimental value. Others were chosen because of how much I like them and their rarity in bookstores (at least in small towns like where I live).

I will first post pics of my bookshelves from before and then pics of what I saved. Feel free to ask why I made particular choices or ridicule me, whatever.

Also feel free to post which of your books you would save in such a situation.

Bookshelves 1/4

2/4

3/4

I'm sorry you might not find much of your house when you get back but at least in this picture I don't see anything of value. Most of them look like used copies, which were probably cheap and not so difficult to find again. It sucks, though, but definitely not a big loss.

Sorry for the brief delay. Had to help ready another room in the building where I'm riding out the storm for another family coming in.

4/4

Yeah like I said, mostly sentimental value. Only one or two may have any real monetary value.

Saved 1/7

There are more pics of saved than bookshelves because of closeups to see titles and whatnot.

Saved 2/7

Also two won't be pictured: Herman Hesse's Beneath the Wheel which happened to be a book I am currently (re)reading and Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks.

Yeah, I'd totally take with me books I could find again easily but are special for me somehow.

Why did you save Kosinki's Painted Bird? I've been meaning to read it for years. The rest looks like a nice selection, seems like the ones you value the most are good books too.

>Middlemarch.

Good, when I saw it in the first pics I thought I would save that one.

irma is looking to be another huge letdown that the media hyped up for ratings so you should be fine, m8

Oh and the other part that sucks is I live about an hour and a half from the closest place you could even really call a small city (Tampa), so the selections in bookstores around here isn't the best. It is more difficult to find a lot of those books than you'd think and I try to avoid purchasing online. Plus rebuilding my collection (again, lost most of my books just over two yeara ago) will just be a huge pain in the ass, and expensive when you add it all up.

Saved 3/7

Awesome book, given to me by a very good friend who I hardly ever see since I moved to where I currently live.

Saved 4/7

Yeah except where I live is almost directly on the water and prone to minor flooding from even just a decent thunderstorm so this could be bad. We went through a direct hit from a hurricane 13 years ago here and it was devastating to the whole area.

Saved 5/7

Closeup to see title/author better

This thread is making me rethink my habit of buying physical copies

For storms there's little inherent risk in overblowing the danger of a natural disaster but a TON of risk in underestimating it since you're opening yourself to accusations of misleading people.

If it doesn't come to pass, you can always say "it was better to be safe and warn everyone of the worst possible scenario"

Why don't you bury them desu?

godspeed user

Florida has a high water table. Unless you're burying them in something completely watertight they'll get waterlogged in flooding

Sorry to hear that OP. Hopefully, your home and books will be safe when you get back. Sorry to hear that you had to evacuate, stay safe.

Keep Joseph Campbell

It's a good read.

If nothing else, this has vetted your collection and it is stronger because of it.

Table of contents from the volume Six Modern American Plays or whatever it was.

Saved 6/7

Contents page from the volume that looks like a little pamphlet.

Saved 7/7

Haha

What the other user said. Where I live you hit water if you dig more than three feet. Plus we get rain almost everyday this time of year anyway, so the ground is pretty well saturated.

This was one that very nearly made the cut, but decided to leave it behind because it is an easily replaceable volume with absolutely no sentimental value attached to that particular copy.

Hope your home doesn't get rekt OP

Latest advisory still has it coming ashore almost directly over my town, but it also still hasnt really started taking the northern turn its expected to so we'll see. Thanks though.

I come from a very small city as well, no bookstores but a couple of Salvation Army-type shops, very rarely I'd get lucky and find some of the classics or other interesting works there, but mostly it's Danielle Steel, thrillers, Tolkien, and other trash. My tip to you is checking private listings which is super easy today because of the increased digitisation, meaning that these days even grandmas who are about to croak are online, or maybe they're having their grandsons help them, either way you can make incredible finds if you keep an eye out for such sellers.
On another note I like your taste in books. Pic related is what I've brought with me while spending a semester abroad (in Germany obviously). The three books left of Dante as well as Dewey in the middle are newer acquisitions, otherwise I focused on bringing books that would keep me busy for the semester either by studying them or rereading them (I unapologetically love bandanna mememan's essays).
I might be biased as you seem to have more German lit than is the norm around here, but I say you did well. And my prayers go to you and the books you left behind as well.

>be american
>live in regions regularly hit by natural disasters, when there is ample space to move to a place without life-threatening natural disasters
good logic there pham

Never have gotten around to reading any Wallace, probably will give him a try someday.

Hesse and Kafka are easily among my favorite writers (I do include Kafka's works in the category of "German lit"). I've probably read more by them than anybody else besides maybe Steinbeck (and maybe Vonnegut, read almost every single thing he wrote between my mid teens to early 20s).

Haha you right. Worst part is I actually did move away from here for almost a decade after high school and then came back. Trust me when I say I had to, though.