English Professors and Their Bookshelves

If this is your first time visiting my blog, than you should know I'm a creative writing major and I love the English department at my school. We have some amazing professors that really invest in their relationships with their students. I've been to one prof's house (we had class there one morning), and I just love the environment they all foster on campus. But have you ever wondered what books English professors own? It's not all stuffy, I promise, and it really gives an insight to their personality.

Let's start with my advisor, Dr. Hurlow. She teaches poetry, journalism, and creative non-fiction.

She has a lot of short story collections, poetry collections, and craft books. I think, if I remember correctly, when I stopped by her office to get pictures, she described her shelves as "fairly uninteresting if you're looking for fiction." I just love looking at other people's bookshelves in general, so I didn't mind. As you can see, her shelves are packed with books.

Dr. Brown teaches a lot of literature courses as well as creative writing for young people (basically middle grade and young adult), which is a class I'm very much looking forward to. He's very passionate about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. And he's written a ton of books himself. He's pretty snazzy.

(apologies for blurry picture)

(Copies of his books.)

His office is by far the largest of all the profs I visited, so his wall of bookshelves is pretty long. He has lots of Shakepeare, C.S. Lewis, craft books, and middle grade fiction. And that last picture is a first edition of The Magician's Nephew. He showed Elise and I the price ticket, and holy cow, was it expensive. (He made sure to emphasize it was a gift.) 

Dr. Penner is an assistant professor of English. She teaches a lot of literature classes. I've had the general lit class with her, as well as Modern Novel (and I plan to take another one with her this spring). She's so much fun and very smart.

She has lots of Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf (as well as other modernist writers). When I was talking with her, she told me she does have children's books but they're all at home. Her daughter is finally old enough for many of them, which was exciting to hear.

So are you an English major? What do your professors' bookshelves look like? Or...if you were an English prof, what books would be on your office shelves?