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What do your bookshelves look like, and how do you organize them?
In a recent topic on ~books, I mentioned my own efforts at organizing my bookshelves, and took some pics to showcase that effort... and it got me curious what other Tildes users bookshelves looked like, and what organization methods they use.
So, what do your bookshelves look like, and how do you organize them?
p.s. Feel free to also talk about anything related to this, e.g. what books you like the cover art of, what you do with annoyingly oversized books, ask others about particular books on their shelves, etc... :)
My own bookshelves + captioned with my grouped categories, which are:
Scifi & Cyberpunk
Graphic Novels & Humour
Fantasy
Art & Poetry
Historical Fiction
History, Politics & Philosophy
Religion & Spirituality
Choose Your Own Adventures + Young Adult fiction (to gift to my nephew when he gets old enough)
Personal (Journals, my old art books, etc)
And I typically hide my ugly/worn/damaged books so my shelves look nice and tidy. As a result you can probably only see about 1/2 my books because of how many old paperbacks I have stuffed behind the front facing ones and in the wicker bins. :P
As others have done, here are pictures of my shelves from the last topic.
The books follow a rough Type > Size > Alphabetization hierarchy. The library as a whole is split into print books and graphic novels/comics. I don't own a lot of print books (ebooks all the way!) and the ones I do own are mostly because they look nice on shelves or they don't/can't have ebook versions (e.g. I have a copy of House of Leaves that's on loan and not pictured).
Everything else is graphic novels because you can't always get digital copies of them and I find that I appreciate the artwork better on paper than I do on screen -- especially for those where the art crosses the fold of the page and is meant to be seen side-by-side instead of one page at a time.
For my comics, I simply tried to put the bigger editions higher up and the smaller volumes lower down for good aesthetics. Then, on each shelf, I alphabetize by title, unless books "go together" (e.g. all of Alison Bechdel's works are in one spot) or I need large books at the ends to keep the books from falling off the sides of the shelves (this is visible with The Encyclopedia of Early Earth and The One Hundred Nights of Hero which should be together but instead are making sure the books between them stay where they're supposed to).
Embarassingly, there are a large number of books on these shelves that I still haven't read. My husband jokingly challenged me to finish them all during quarantine, and given how long that might go, it's become less of a joke and more of a genuine possibility. I've been slowly chipping away at them (I'm in the middle of Scott McCloud's The Sculptor right now).
The upside to my collection, aside from the fact that I just enjoy its presence visually, is that almost nothing on this shelf cost full price. In fact, many of these I own only because they were going for dirt cheap on used/remaindered book sites. I was less interested in the specific title and more interested in the fact that there was a copy of it for, say, $3. The others I would get whenever one of the chain bookstores in my area would put out good coupons. They'd often have something like a "50% off orders over $50", and since graphic novels are expensive, I'd toss one or two in the cart, hit the threshhold for the discount, and get some very pricey editions for far cheaper than I should have (see: Absolute Watchmen).
Wow, your bookshelves are really lovely looking with all those beautiful covers and collections, and you even put my graphic novel collection to shame!
My having read every book on my bookshelves cover to cover (including all the religious texts, e.g. Nag Hammadi, Tanakh, Koran, Bible, etc.) at least once is honestly one of the things I'm most proud of with my own book collection. Though it probably helps that I rarely buy books just for the aesthetic, have only ever bought ones I fully intended to read, and have made a concerted effort to actually do that once I purchased them. I have a ton of unread books on my kindle, but I suspect that's kinda par for the course when it comes to digital media, since it's way too easy to acquire more than you even physically have time to consume.
I definitely can't say the same, since I often buy new books in series the day they are released, even if hardcover is the only option. :P I have gotten quite a few books from charity/thrift shops over the years though, so not everything on my shelves was full price.
Here's mine: https://tildes.net/~books/nep/whats_on_your_bookshelf#comment-4tue
They're organised by category, as noted in the captions on the images.
Oh damn, I didn't realize there was another recent topic like this one. How did I miss that? Thanks for pointing it out!
As to your bookshelves, they look pretty much exactly like I imagined they would... a bit chaotic but with a good variety of subjects and multiple rows of Star Trek and Asimov. :P
While I could easily link to my last post on this subject, I'll go ahead and re-take some photos. Plus, I've added a shelf.
Shelf 1, Level 1
Shelf 1, Level 2
Shelf 1, Level 3
"Shelf" 2
Shelf 3, Left
Shelf 3, Right
Well, that's about it. There's not a whole of rhyme or reason to the ordering, here. Before I moved into the place I currently reside, my main shelf (shelf 1) was organized somewhat by thematic links. Now it's mostly be whatever is physically convenient.
Wow, that's actually quite the impressive variety of books... I can see at least one book by a whole bunch of great authors, e.g. Gibson, Gaiman, Bradbury, Heinlein, Nabokov, Kafka, Bukowski, Joyce, Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, Heller, Aurelius, Aristotle, Rice, Wells. And the fact that I can list them all by last name alone speaks to that, I think. ;)
What's with all the DeLillo though, is he your favorite author? I haven't read any of his books myself, but should I?
I don't know if I'd say DeLillo is my favorite author...but I think he's pretty solid. He encapsulates the whole post-modern thing pretty well. His stuff doesn't get so dense that it collapses in on itself like some work in that style sometimes does (though that stuff can be fun to delve into(Pynchon)). Libra is definitely a must-read. And maybe White Noise, if only to get a further peak at his style.
My favorite writer is Annie Dillard. At least...she's up there. Her non-fiction stuff, that is. Haven't read her fiction (and I'm kind of scared to).
I will definitely check out Libra at least then; Added to my reading wishlist. Never heard of Annie Dillard before, although after a quick glance at her biblio, The Living seems most interesting to me, since I dig Historical Fiction... especially centered in the 1800s (e.g. Aubrey–Maturin series).
I would honestly be very hard pressed to definitively pick my favorite author, but my top 10 would probably be (in no particular order): Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, William Gibson, Neil Stephenson, Steven Erikson, James Clavell, Tom Clancy, and Brandon Sanderson.
Edit: Shit, how could I have forgotten Frank Herbert!? I have read the complete Dune series (even all the crappy ones by his son) at least a half-dozen times over the years.
Libra is a pretty compelling piece of speculative historical fiction. The premise, of course, is just a staging ground for a deep dive into American exceptionalistic self-reflection.
Oooh..in that case I'd also strongly suggest Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and/or Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor. They're both a bit of a time investment, but considering you like Pratchett and Adams you might enjoy their silly takes on Colonial America. Though, Mason & Dixon isn't pure silliness. In fact, it's pretty heady and deep and can get downright melancholic...but it also has talking dogs and invisible guardian angel robotic ducks and Alice-in-Wonderland-esque scenarios. Hm... I may have underrated it at 4/5 stars...
Sweet, I am always on the lookout for more historical fiction to read and those sound perfect, so I have added them to my wishlist too. Thanks! Although sadly The Sot-Weed Factor isn't available on Kindle... so I might have to track it down via "other means". ;)
It is empty. I was actually looking for a book earlier, but there are none in the house: I didn't bring any when I moved here, as I had already transitioned away from physical books more than half a decade ago.
What I read is partly on my phone, partly on my e-reader (I only bought one again last month, so there isn't as much on it).
There isn't a lot of organization to it, in any case: when I have a lot of books by the same author then I will create a folder for them, but I otherwise drop everything together and rely on search to find what I need. Having a consistent naming convention helps: unless I'm bulk copying from some backup, all my books (and most of my files) are named according to the following pattern.
Almost empty after i bought my Kindle.
I still have some books that i keep because reading in paper is better, like Infinite Jest, House of Leaves and Maus and i still have to read it. After doing it i will donate.