Shelving books is an individual art form. A way for book lovers to express themselves through their collection. There is always a method to the madness. As my own collection is growing again I find myself sorting and re-sorting as more books get added to my “read” shelves.
When I was younger, I was extremely particular in that everything was either non-fiction or fiction. Within these two broad stroke categories the books were then sorted by author last name. If an author had several works, book titles were alphabetic order. This included series, though they went in as the series name in lieu of book title. So for JK Rowling you would swiftly find her under R, Harry Potter would be under H within R.
Now that I am older and read a lot more variety, categories no longer fit into just “fiction” and “non-fiction”. I also read a lot more series and I don’t like them jumbled in with other singular books.
As of right now my “read” shelves are broken into the following categories with some having their own sorting:
· Auto/biographies
o Sorted by subjects name (Einstein by Walter Isaacson can be found under E)
· Business
o Author last name
· Children’s Books
o No order at this time, any recommendations would be appreciated
· Educational
o By subject
· Fiction
o Author last name, first name (for when you have 3 different Browns), book title
· Harry Potter
o No real order, just all things Harry on one shelf. This is the only shelf where nothing really matters. I have the series, a “fan fiction”, a funk pop, a beanie baby, the Hogwarts themed textbooks…
· Non-fiction
o As of right now under author last name, debating if it should be subject matter
· Poetry/Quotes
o Book title
· Self-Help
o Author last name
· WW2
o No order at this time. Hubby is a huge fan so have a tiny collections of books he has never read but likes the idea of reading. Night Trilogy is in this grouping and I cannot recommend it highly enough. 5++++++ star rating. It should have its own shelf like Harry Potter
Some categories are depressing small though, poetry/quotes only has two! Makes it very easy to see which categories I do not venture into a lot.
I think so far that I like the new system, other than it shows how many books I do not own anymore and my “to-read” books are all in bags on the floor around my shelf.
Series is where I am stumped though. Do you sort them by author? By series name? Once that initial sort is done…do you have them lined up side by side? With 1 on the left? Or do you have them stacked? If stacked, is 1 on the top or the bottom?
Every book challenge I get means that I am able to squeeze in some books from a series in but typically am left with only a partially read series which makes me really sad. I propose a new type of challenge.
The Series Challenge:
· Each quarter has a new theme
· Each quarter there are five additional categories that are selected at random (i.e. A book with a green cover, A book with a child protagonist…)
· Each quarter there are five additional blank slots
This challenge allows three months to read a series while still allowing the scavenger fun of finding books that fit into categories. The five empty slots are in case a series is too large to complete in the quarter so there is still ample time to finish it throughout the course of the year.
The extra five quarterly categories will be reset as well!
and I am going to throw in that a series is 5 books or more. Trilogy is a trilogy, four is a quartet so that leaves five and more as a series!
Also, since I have a lot of series that I have started and not finished, if you read at least five books in a series that counts toward the challenge :) example being, The Women's Murder Club by James Patterson I have read the first seven books already but it is a 20 + book series.
Shelf Loving <3
**EDIT** since writing this, and while I was trying to take a half decent picture I have re arranged my shelves again! I still kept categories mentioned above and also added a few more.
