I was inspired by Kat’s super awesome bookshelf adventure to reorganize my own shelves. Messing around with my bookshelves is one of my favorite things to do (I find it incredibly soothing) and mine have gotten a wee bit out of control recently so when I saw Kat’s posts and got the itch, I decided to roll with it.
Monkey says ‘wtf are you doing these are my shelves go away.’
The two biggest problems with my current arrangement is I’ve run out of space (clearly) and the last time I reorganized my shelves I used a complicated system of genres and subgenres (some actual genres, some of my own creation) and kept forgetting where I shelved my books so it would take me awhile to find things (not the worst problems to have but whatever).
As usual, I strongly considered organizing them by color to the point of starting to divide them but as soon as I got to a series that needed to be split up, I freaked out and decided I couldn’t do it. I’m sticking with official genres, skipping subgenres entirely and alphabetizing within said genre buckets (boring, I know, but my memory is made of garbage and I’d rather be able to quickly find a book than trying to remember if I split up my apocalypse books by monsters vs non monsters and which one did I consider aliens at the time?). I also decided to say fuck it and mix up YA and adult because at this point, most of my non-YA is in storage so why bother having a tiny section when I can just mix them in.
……it is possible I have a bit of a problem.
After sorting out the books that could go into storage (for the most part stuff I’ve collected from library sales, hung on to since high school and/or like enough to hang on to but am not currently into reading) (there’s also a significant amount of books-I’m-hanging-on-to-because-when-it-comes-to-my-books-I’m-like-a-dragon-with-a-hoard, if I’m being honest). I boxed them up and added them to the piles in what is quickly becoming my book storage closet.
Not pictured: a 15 gallon bin piled past the point of being able to put a lid on it on the floor behind me. I can’t fit it in the closet. Shit.
There’s a hell of a lot of Cassandra Clare hidden in there (even though I’ll probably (hopefully) (please, god) never reread them, I have invested too much time and money in her books to just get rid of them) along with a massive box of Nora Roberts (despite of their extremely templated nature and general corniness, I deeply love Nora Roberts and have a massive stockpile of them (she’s written like 400 billion books) for when I’m sick).
I didn’t get super fancy like Kat, but I do like to break up my shelves with horizontally stacked books and various stuff I’ve collected over the years.
I can’t really reach the top shelf, so I’ve left the overflow from my husband’s shelf/non-fiction/classics up there because I don’t generally want to get at them (aside from my B&N special edition of P&P, designed by my all time favorite designer, Jessica Hische, because I like to keep that one handy so I can pet and admire it whenever I want). I also keep my Buffy and Spike Funko POPs up there in their boxes so I don’t spend all of my time sitting around smashing their faces together (because I absolutely would) (I still do it an awful lot considering how much trouble they are to get down and play with).
Below that I have all of my contemporaries, followed by historical, historical paranormal/fantasy (I don’t have enough of these for their to be much of a point in splitting them up) and urban fantasy. Now that I’m looking at these pictures, I’m not sure if I put Burn Bright and Dark Star in the right place (feel free to yell at me in the comments if you see anything misshelved, I’m crap at genres, tbh) (although I’d never put Cinder/Scarlet/Cress/Fairest in epic fantasy, so there’s that) (no, the creepy staring man doesn’t belong, but this way he stares at the rest of the room and I find it both hilarious and off-putting).
Here’s my sort-of-magical-but-not-enough-to-necessarily-be-fantasy?-idk-I-haven’t-read-all-of-these-yet-and-the-ones-I have-read-I-don’t-know-what-to-genre (top shelf)/fantasy shelf:
These are Apocalypse/Sci-fi/hilarious adult contemps/assorted stuff shelf and my Paranormal/Dystopian shelves:
Behold! The newly redone bookshelf corner in full glory!
How do you do your shelves? Are you more of a ‘wherever I have space,’ ‘complicated system,’ or ‘totally based on aesthetics’ kind of shelver?
Luan Pitsch
Artistically pleasing. I’ve never thought of the some vertical, some horizontal.
Stephanie Kaye
I honestly cannot wait until I can do this with my shelves that my fiance is making me. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until after we get married because all of our money is going towards the wedding and our bills and groceries. So most of my books are in boxes still or scattered in piles in the spare bedroom. But once I get our library/office ready I think I’ll do a video or post documenting my shelves 🙂
I love your corner!
Lisa (Fic Talk)
I actually only have the one rather large shelf that has worked fine until now. I’ve run out of shelf space and I can’t reach the very top of my shelf either so that’s out of the question.
I’m contemplating putting books into my closet. hah.
Morgan @ Gone with the Words
They look amazing, I love them!! And I love your decorative lights too. And your cute cat! I like how your shelves descend in size like a really cool Tetris piece haha. Such a lovely reading corner 🙂
I also like to break up my shelves with horizontal stacks here and there, and plenty of knick knacks. My system is somewhat organized but also my own craziness. i recently got a small shelf for my bedroom where I put most of my unread TBR so the genres are all mixed. I also have a shelf in my room for Outlander/ASOIAF. And floating shelves. Then in my living room the top shelf is for my HP hardcovers in all their glory, HP bookends and everything. Below that is most of my epic fantasy/fantasy. Under that is my sci fi/gothic/mysterious I dont know, they just go together. Under that is all my contemporary and a small amount of YA historical. Under that is mostly adult historical fiction and dual timeline novels. And under that, just because they’re too heavy for anywhere else are some adult hardcovers. I try to keep my favorites in the living room so I can stare at them admiringly all day. In my second room I have a second shelf with childhood favorites, classics, my HP new paperback set, HP foreign editions, and books I enjoyed but not enough to be favorites. So overall I group by genre and just how they look next to each other.
Sarah J.
I love looking at these posts. Bookshelves are the best things to photograph and admire.
Vanessa
My shelves… are a mess. I don’t even know how my books are organised. I should start putting them in order. Loved this post!
Kelsey
I love how your shelves look!! I wouldn’t mind decorating mine, but it’s pretty much full of books and I don’t have room or another shelf in the house to work with. Maybe when we eventually get another bigger place I’ll create my own reading corner 🙂
Lyn Kaye
So I might be crying just a little bit, because I have a bad case of the JELLIES.