Inside Our Personal Libraries

National Review asked some writers and collectors to describe their personal libraries. Here's how they replied:

Richard Brookhiser:

My books are almost all properly shelved, though the shelves are wedged into the crannies of a New York apartment: two built-ins in the bedroom, two in the dining room, planks on brackets hugging the ceilings, clutches hiding in cabinets. There is little organization, however. Most of my history books sit to the right of my desk, for easy access while I work, but otherwise the Brookhiser Decimal System depends on memory. Why is volume 2 of My Struggle (Karl Ove Knausgaard) next to Churchill, Roosevelt & Company(Lewis Lehrman)? Because I put them there, and I know that is where I can go to find them. (Sometimes I am distracted by ghost memories of the locations of books I have given away.)