Line drawing of box shapes

This exercise required a line drawing of a group of objects which were blocky in shape, so I assembled some books, two boxes, two vases and a box of ink. I soon had major difficulty in aligning the various items correctly in relation to each other and was not happy with the angles of the book edges as they do not appear to be sitting solidly on the box below.

In an attempt to loosen up I decided to draw the objects again by drawing the outline as a continous line first and adding some detail later. The horizontal line of the rear table edge threw me out so the bottom lines of the shape have been pushed upwards. However, I felt I had solved the lines of the books as they now appeared more connected to the other objects.

I realised that having set them up at the other end of the table they were actually too close to me, and the slightest change in my viewing position was significantly changing the perspective. I transferred all the items to a separate table further away and drew them again (below)

I spent much more time in this attempt at pencilling in the overall construction of each item as well as guidelines for their positions relative to each other. Having slightly changed their arrangement I had now removed the space between objects and found this a much more satisfying result.

I actually found this quite challenging as I haven't worked with these shapes for a long time, and struggled to remember the most basic rules of perspective. I am going to read through a couple of reference books and come back for another attempt shortly.