A little Bookish Banter to get us through. Bookish Banter is a little bit of banter about our bookish thoughts as we have a friendly discussion over a nice cup of tea.
How do you organize your bookshelves? Do you organize to make finding your books easier? Do you put your books in alphabetical by series? By author? By Genre? Are you more into aesthetics and prefer it by height or by color?
Ash:
I am definitely more into aesthetics. I would have all of my books done by color if I could, but then I'd have to separate my series. And that's not something I can do, it would be way too difficult to find the books if they aren't by series. If I split the series up it would be mass chaos.
Anyway! I wish I could put it all in order by color, it looks so pretty and makes for amazing pictures. Two out of three of my bookshelves are done by color. One of which has no series on it, and is all books I haven't read yet. And the second shelf has TWO series on it. And I just sucked it up and split them up, and I'm trying really hard not to think about it.
In a perfect world, if I had my own library (Sigh) I would probably do it by author, then by title/series within the author, so the books would be easier to find. But, it's not a perfect world, so my three bookshelves will just have to be enough.
Jenn's answer:
I like to organize mine in many ways. Its too hard to just do it one way. I am very OCD and organizing books is always something I can’t get just right. Since we have moved I have not organized my bookshelves at all. Haven't had the time and I need more bookshelves. You know what that feels like I am sure. The disorganization is driving me crazy though. I try to stay away from the books.
Here is a picture…
But when I do organize them I like to do it this way.
- First I separate read from need to read. If it’s a series I haven’t finished they go on my need to read. I always keep series together. They are family you cannot separate them
- Then I separate hardcover from paperback. – this gets tricky. This is why I refused to have series in both paperback and hardcover. I try to keep it all the same. I even will re-buy books in series if the covers have change. I know crazy
- Then separate stand alone from series.
- Then I put on shelf by height. I like them to be biggest on the ends and go to smaller in the middle. I love the way this looks.
I have never found a for sure way to find the books I need when I need them. I have tried by author name and series name and book name to alphabetize but they never look good on the shelves that way. So I gave up.
I need a card catalog and then a filing system that would be awesome but I don’t and card catalogs… hard to find. I know I have looked. At least authentic ones are hard to find and that is what I want or should say need in my life.
How do you organize your books. Do you have a system? Is it easy for you to keep the system? To find the books you are looking for? Are you more aestetic or old fashioned library organized like?
Great post, girls! I do have a system myself. I divide my shelves into genres and then alphabetize...even my TBR shelves (the physical ones). :)
ReplyDeleteSo, for the moment. And I do mean the moment. I have my books organized by hardcover, paperback and mass paperback. Then within that they are by series, then by author. I will buy the hard cover of a book if I find it even though I have the paperback, just so I can put a series together. It is really annoying when some authors either started out doing only mass markets, then switched to hard cover releases. I have been so tempted to buy Kim Harrison's Fistful of Charms in hardcover, but it is almost extinct and the copies I found are going for like $400. Not something my husband would appreciate!
ReplyDeleteI cram my books wherever they fit. One of my shelves is organized by color, and another shelf is organized by size. The rest of the shelves are just messy.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
I used to do alphabetically by author but then... then I became overwhelmed. I also tried color, but only on a couple shelves but then... same as before. Now it's basically just a free for all, because I have too many books basically hah. One of these days I do want to organize again- I will probably do my already-read shelves alphabetically again, and then my TBR, I do want to try color again. But it's hard because there's a disproportionate amount of black spines, which really makes the color organization tough!
ReplyDelete