How do you arrange your bookshelf?

[wilde]

Well, when I first got it, it was organized alphabetically by author, and all the series were in order. Now though, there's small stacks on the shelves in front of the rows of books. Also, it's got action figures and cat hair.


The bottom shelf, however, is for library books only. Yep, I need an entire shelf.

[bleachededen]

That's the other thing I'm interested in...what's on your bookshelves that aren't books? Those things also tell interesting things about people.

I like the cat hair, that was funny. Does the cat like to read? Which books does the cat gravitate toward? That would be cute -- a cat who liked to read. Maybe I should write a children's story about it.

[missyannlala]

I've got anything from perfume, figurines, loose paper, odds and ins that i've collected over the years..jewelry..etc. anything that I just toss up there.

[wilde]

Haha a couple of my cats just like to curl up next to the shelves and sleep. And one of them likes to interrupt me when I'm reading. I'll sit and enjoy my book, and next thing I know, there's a cat in my face. xP

[tomwhite56]

When my shelves aren't a complete and total mess...I group by genre, but then I seperate by author, and then arrange the author's books in chronological order. So, for instance, Deighton and Le Carre are together, and Dickens is on the classics case with Austen and Bronte, American authors like Keillor and Salinger and Dillard and Smiley find themselves sharing space, and there's a whole shelf devoted to World War II books...among many other groupings.

[tomwhite56]

Right now, I have mine separated by genre but not alphabetized in any way. Instead, they are arranged according to height and width and how they appeal visually to the eye.

I was living with a mistake some time ago -- did I say that out loud? -- and found her arranging my books by color. I think the seperation began then.

[Chris OConnor]

I've got one shelf devoted exclusively to BookTalk.org books. My other shelves are broken down in all sorts of incomprehensible ways. I could never explain it.

[bleachededen]

I also meant to ask if anyone arranged their books autobiographically (ala Jon Cusack's character's arrangement of music albums in High Fidelity).

That would be a bit harder for books, I think, because you can't always remember when you read them first and a second read may have coincided with a more important period in life, etc. But I'd still find it fascinating to see if anyone actually does that.

[hmrush]

My bookshelves are a total mess, but I have an organizational system...sort of.

The top shelves ( in my four stupid bookcases, I just need one giant one haha) are the books that I re-read most often, i.e. the fountainhead, the awakening, mama day, rebels angels, a farewell to arms, and short story collections or poem collections.
The middle shelves are organized by author; Vonnegut, Palahniuk, Leguin, Dawkins, etc.
The bottom shelves are my reference books (I also have a bookcase for other assorted references, mostly text books from different classes) which are mostly dictionaries ( It is important to have more than one!) rhyming dictionaries, my grammar bibles, some non fiction like Gendered Lives (I am a feminist lit major, go figure) and How to Read a Poem, How to Read a Book.

In front of those are the books that didn't fit anywhere. My floor has the books I have yet to read, right now its Suite Francaise, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Sargasso Sea, Mansfield Park and Guns Germs and Steel.

I keep my jewlery tree ( weird I know) on top of Bookcase number 1 along with my incense and some rubberbands, my other three have papers, mail, cds, old notebooks, pens, and other assorted junk on top! haha

[The Ritzy]

Books I have read are pushed to the back of the bookshelf with a chair and whip.
Books I've yet to read are crowded in the front, usually in small piles with bookmarks in the ones I'm planning on reading next.