We do have an actual move date near week’s end; the frantic last-minute stuff has begun. But sometimes you just have to leapfrog the process and unpack a few of the things that make a place feel like home…
(Plus we needed the boxes for more…books.)
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Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
So – Are they arranged by Dewey or do you have another system? By the way, I have bookcase envy. (and I know you’re not finished yet)
Dewey? You have a handyman named Dewey? Picture please! I KID!!!
I do want to know you system though, why all the blank spaces, what goes there?
They’re probably sorted by ISBN 😉
I seriously know of an author who arranges his books by cover colors.
Wow! That is surprising! 🙂
See my longer reply below. The blank spaces are mostly because I’m still packing, moving, and unpacking books.
These are sorted by a system known only to my mind. These are mostly literary works–poetry and fiction–arranged by country and then time period. Then there are some of the books that belonged to my parents, so even if they aren’t literary, they get to be on those shelves.
I work my way up to modern then contemporary American, and that’s when everything becomes really random, because only time determines what’s literary to the world, but I have my own opinions on that. =)
At this time, these don’t include any of the genre books–mystery, romance, gay–that I own, even though I’d consider some of those literary plus those include more of my parents’ books. They were just on other shelves in my current house and I haven’t tapped into those boxes yet.
Finally, because of how these bookcases are built, most of my coffee table books/art books will go here, plus I have a lower shelf of children’s books, even though the children I know are getting too old for them and would much prefer to be looking at some handheld electronic device or the TV.
That’s quite the system 🙂
When I have mine out of boxes, I do mine chronologically to when I bought them, separated by genre. But, since they’re all in boxes, I just need to know which box.
dewey decimal system…. man, i hope no one ever expects me to remember how to use that!
My brain burned out long ago on Dewey, Library of Congress, and retail shelving. But it’s crazy how I can look at a group of books and say, “There’s another box somewhere, because I don’t see any D.H. Lawrence and I know I wouldn’t have gotten rid of him.”
And sure enough…
and my reaction is “Wow! WHo knew I had that book!”
When I ran out of bookshelf space, I bought my Kindle. Now when I want to search or reference a book I’ve read, I call it down from the cloud with all the notes I added to it.
I was noticing tonight in what I’d unpacked so far, I have only two young adult books. But I have a ton on my Nook, so bookshelves can be deceiving.
At the risk of generating fondue…
This Internet access to books thing reminded me of an XKCD’s What If column on printing all of (the English) Wikipedia. Fortunately, when the publishers decide to print a new edition (or errata updates) keeping up with the printing is easier for books than
WikiesWikiis… conjugate the noun… Wikis… OK (okay, not the state) at least spell check allows that one.So, printing out all that stuff in electronic format would take up how many bookshelves? 🙂
In our kitchen, there are four bookshelves of cookbooks (they’re small, built alongside cabinets). We don’t have a huge number of them, so I arranged them by colour. Obviously, my bookselling days are wearing off.
(It actually looks quite impactful.)
I think it’s okay to arrange cookbooks any way you want to–as long as you use them to cook something for me.
The sight of those shelves brought a huge surge of happiness (and a little touch of envy) to my heart. Enjoy!
Thank you! It remains to be seen if I have enough bookshelves because though I have these, I gave up four, too. Fingers crossed.