STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

Organizing books...

Suasoria · Chanel

Heh. Great question. I have some built-in shelves in the living room for more decorative books - antique books, and reference books organized by subject (art, gardening, wine).

A big bookshelf in the same room has literature, poetry and drama in hardcover and trade paperback sizes - trade pb is not the smallest size (5 x 8?) but the larger size. I also have a medium-sized bookshelf hidden in the guest bedroom closet for the small-sized paperbacks. All the fiction is organized by the continent and then the country the author comes from - Latin America: Mexico, Brazil, Chile. Europe: England, Ireland, France, Germany, Russia. Etc. For some reason sorting by country makes sense to me and makes it easy for me to find things.

The other two bookshelves are for general nonfiction and they are organized loosely by subject - health, nutrition, religion, new age, self-help, assorted Indian gurus are in the big one; politics, feminism, language, etc. in the other. I also have a shelf of kid books for young guests. They are too jammed full to organize much.

Boots · Gucci

I try to do it by genre and then by size. The genre part lasts, but the size, not so much. Too many books, too little space.

Su- I love that you keep a shelf stocked for kids at you place! I bought all my friends kids books this year (and it's not the first) for Christmas. I think it's so important for kids to have access to books.

Kelly · Hermes

I organize nonfiction by topic, and fiction just gets shoved in there any which way. They are loosely organized in groups (science fiction together, series stay together, books by my favorite authors are usually grouped together) but I actually mostly organize fiction by size just because some of my shelves are different heights so the same size books almost have to be together so that they all fit on the bookshelf.

I have to say that organizing books by color KILLS me. It seems so illogical to me - to organize by the cover color rather than anything actually about the book? For some reason that screams "I don't even read these books, I just bought them to decorate my house" to me.

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

The majority of my books (like 90%) are novels, so I just kind of mix them all together. I think I have OCD, because I have to organize my books by height. They can't be organized by varying heights or it drives me nuts. I do that for my DVDs too.

Yana · Dooney & Bourke

Hi!
My library isn't that big big or organized perfectly, but mostly by theme & author: i.e. all art albums together, all dictionaries, all foreign language...then all the book by the same author are together - easier to find, but not alphabetically by author, since sometimes you need to fit the books by size...

Once I saw an inspirational living room pic - all the books were organized by color. Not practical AT ALL, but sure looked very hip.

Suasoria · Chanel

Boots wrote:

Su- I love that you keep a shelf stocked for kids at you place! I bought all my friends kids books this year (and it's not the first) for Christmas. I think it's so important for kids to have access to books.

It's because I don't like kids much, and books keep them q-u-i-e-t.

Kelly wrote:

I have to say that organizing books by color KILLS me. It seems so illogical to me - to organize by the cover color rather than anything actually about the book? For some reason that screams "I don't even read these books, I just bought them to decorate my house" to me.

Right? Why not just cover them all in white paper?

But I wonder if someone with synesthesia or a similar neurological condition finds it more useful to organize by color. I can sometimes remember what a particular book looks like before I remember the title.