How Do You Arrange Your Books?

[fcgamer | 4,722]

I've been doing a lot of reading recently, and similarly, I've been purchasing about four or five books each month, which I then go through in the evenings.

My bookshelves are a bit of a mess though, so I want to try to arrange them. Initially I thought about arranging them by theme or genre, then I thought perhaps keep the books I read separate from those I haven't read, but that would then disorganize the genre bit.

So for those of you who still read physical books, how do you arrange your collection?

[Richardhead | 2,813]

I arrange it by either donating them or giving them to friends to read. If my book shelf gets full, I stop buying until I get rid of some. I only have a small handful of books that I read on a semi-regular basis. 
I currently have 31 unread books with a shelf and a half to spare. Unfortunately a really good book shop opened up within walking distance of my home about a year ago. 

[fox | 1,665]

On the shelf it is Alphabetical by title with a couple exceptions where semi-related works within the same series or same author are grouped together.  Looks pretty good, neat and easy to find everything.

Doing read/unread looked messy and having to shift and reorder stuff all the time broke up the flow.  Whatever I'm currently reading is in my bag or out on the dresser.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

Size big to small. My shelf looks messy otherwise.

[Brickman | 3,983]

Alphabetical. I can see the argument for genre and alphabetical as well.

Anything else is just too crazy imo. I want to be able to find the book fast, not look through a whole heap of colours or big to small or whatever new interior design method is hot right now.

I also do the same with my vinyl and games. Although games are separated into systems then alphabetically.

[Gloves | 11,771]

Lol books. Buncha nerds. 

[Brickman | 3,983]

2 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Lol books. Buncha nerds. 

Hey, I do have around 200 volumes of manga! I really need to stop buying manga...but it's so cheap!

[Reed Rothchild | 9,514]

I have shelves for large, medium, and small.

Beyond that, it's kind of a free-for-all.  But I at least try to keep an author's work together.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,514]

I guess I do have a kind of horror shelf.

And my rando series of mass market paperbacks 

And some day I'll build something for my kids' library

[Deadeye | 1,596]

By color grouping

Madness?  Maybe....but I didn't say you would like the answer

[spacepup | 2,404]

Reed - between the books, dvds, video games, etc. Do you have any walls in your home not covered with media? Not a criticism just an observation!

[Reed Rothchild | 9,514]

29 minutes ago, spacepup said:

Reed - between the books, dvds, video games, etc. Do you have any walls in your home not covered with media? Not a criticism just an observation!

Oh I'm not allowed anywhere near areas meant for public consumption or decency

Also, I have about 30 minutes to clean up our battleground before mom gets home.

[spacepup | 2,404]

What I see in that pic is that a lot of fun was had!

As for books, I don't really have a ton of them, but I do still buy ones that really interest me.  I don't have any strict organization method, but I try to keep series and themes together.  I don't have enough to really need to alphabetize or anything like that. 

I have lots of random things like artbooks and such, and I tend to just make those fit the spaces I have for them - I don't know that there is any specific organization to them, except for same series / themes.

[fox | 1,665]

5 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I have shelves for large, medium, and small.

Beyond that, it's kind of a free-for-all.  But I at least try to keep an author's work together.

That's a really respectable wall of solid paper.  So much King!

[fcgamer | 4,722]

Really liking @Reed Rothchild's wall of paper, these days I know very few people that still keep so many physical books around. Very nice! 

I took some time tonight to organize my book shelves, I roughly tried to organize it by genre; after much thought, I felt this would suit me best. 

There are some other shelves in the same unit with other things, such as my coffee stuff, some wine, etc. I might try to sort that out tomorrow and then share pics of the whole thing. 

in the meantime, here's my book collection. I've got a collection back in the States too, I really need to do something about that next time I'm in the area for more than a week.

 

[G-type | 2,479]

Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 534]

I don't have a whole lot of books these days and most of them are in boxes as I don't have a real bookshelf, and even so they are just kinda thrown on top of my parts shelving (grouping similar books). I would sort by category then alphabetically, which is how I sort my electronic parts. I do this form of sorting of all my physical copies of arcade manuals and schematics.