Wacky ways we organize our bookshelves

Wacky ways we organize our bookshelves

Everybody organizes their bookshelf to their taste. Some people will only place their books in alphabet order, while others goes way-out and create their very own wacky way to organize their bookshelf.

Today Jasmyn and I are going to give you a peek on how we organize our bookshelves.  

Laurie

Unlike my daughter and others I don’t organize my books in alphabet order. I created a system just for me and it has worked well for me over the years.

At this time I only have 5 book shelves. One designated for my cookbooks while the others are for my romance, cozy mystery reading and Sims games, which I have been trying to buy with automatic download to save space, but it’s hard to break old habits. LOL. I only keep books that I fall in love with, the rest will go sooner or later.

 I have one wacked up system but it works for me. My top shelf is devoted to the books I want to read ASAP. I place books on this shelf in order by which book or sometimes author, which I want to read first.

My bottom bookshelf is designated for series that I have just starting collecting. When I start collecting a series I first check and see how many books the author already has out at the time, then I start collecting. If the series is in the upper numbers like 20 and I have only one or two books, then I will wait until I have at least 10 books in the series before I will move the series up to the next top few shelves. If the author only has a few books in the series I usually place them on one of the shelves in the middle of the bookshelf, so I can keep up with where I am at in collecting the series. Basically the series that are on the bottom bookshelf I am in no huge hurry to finish collecting.

My next three bookshelves are filled with series I have been collecting by authors that are just about complete. These shelves I will push myself to finish collecting because the sooner I get them collected the sooner I can start reading them. I do not organize them in any kind of order, like authors name or series name, which I have tried both ways during the years and neither worked any differently than the system I have now. I place the series by one author together and when I get to a certain point in my series collecting I will start placing them in series order, so they are ready to start reading when I finish collecting the whole series. 

HA! I know it’s not a simple system but this my quirky system and it works for me, and I am happy with it.

Jasmyn

I am quite the organized book hoarder.  Yes, I’m a book hoarder, but I have it mostly under control.  Currently, I only keep books that have received a 3+ star rating.  

Anything less, and I’m quick to pawn them off to someone else.  There are just a few exceptions for books in a series or if I have a collection from an author.  There’s always a dud in there somewhere, but I like to be complete still.  I have plans for when I do run out of space, and then I will eliminate the 3 stars and only keep 4 and up. 

I have nine full sized bookcases and two short bookcases, at least for the moment.  Each group has their own special set of books on them and are faithfully guarded by my shelf guardians (more on that later).

The first group I have is pretty straight forward.  Books I’ve read are shelved alphabetically by the author’s last name.  If I have multiple by an author, I organize them by series (either by series name or chronological order if multiple series are within the same world) or by title.  It’s super easy to find a book to re-read and to add books right where they belong in this system.  It’s popular for a reason.

The next couple groupings may not seem as organized, but I still manage to remember where everything is.  I have three sets of TBR shelves.  Yep, three of them. I have one for books that I have purchased and have not yet read.  One for books I’ve received from Goodreads that I have not read, and one for books I’ve received through the Amazon Vine program that I have not read.  Once they are read, and if they make the cut, they get shelved with the rest of my read books.

It may seem a bit much to have three TBR sections on my shelves, but they really aren’t that big and I like to keep the different types separate.  I bounce between them as I decide what to read next.  All three of these are shelved in the order I received them.  I try really hard to read the oldest first, but if I’m just not in the mood for that type of book, I move on to the next until one catches my eye.

Now, shelf guardians.  These are the magical creatures (yes, I do live in a fantasy world) that protect my shelves from the evil one.  He that is known as “the one who moves books around to see if I will notice and thinks it’s funny”.  Sooo not funny if you move my books.  I turn into a monster that can’t function until they are all back in place.  My shelf guardians help me keep them where they belong, and even play double duty as the monsters that scare the other monsters out of my son’s room at night.

Do you have a quirky way you organize your books? If so, please let us know.