Alphabetical is lame, by color is impractical: The Guardian takes on the brave question of how to organize your bookshelf, with a sprinkle of British in-joking and casual sexism.
I'm not planning to resign from public office any time soon, the dogcatcher van is just too handy to give up, but I was recently thinking about reorganizing my library. I have gone haphazard, and now I want to come back. There's some organization between the shelves, but it's not very rigid. I shelved my unread books by color for a while (vaguely, I didn't Munsell Hue it or anything), but that has fallen apart except for the blues.
I'm thinking about going along museum lines: My favorites (the permanent collection) get pride of place, review books (traveling exhibition) have a shelf to themselves, borrowed and gift books (selections from a special donor) are similarly separated and general to-be-reads (the stuff in the back rooms in crates? broken metaphors?) take up the remaining shelves. At least then I'll feel like I'm making more unbookening progress than I am.
2 days ago
5 comments:
Without really meaning to do so, I have organized my books in a similar way. I have a nice, built-in, behind glass doors bookshelf in the living room, where I keep my favorite hardcovers. Then, in my bedroom, I have a couple of stand-alone shelves where I keep paperbacks and books I haven't read yet.
While I think that 'decorating with books' is usually pretty silly, the hardcovers do look nice out there, and since I've already read them, there's no point in keeping them within arm's reach, like the paperbacks and unread hardcovers I've got in my bedroom. The downside is my once-general-purpose shelves in my bedroom have become exclusively book shelves, and I forget about the nice, heavy books I keep in the living room because I haven't read them in a long time and because to a certain extent they are out of sight and out of mind.
I don't think it counts as "decorating" if you have actually read the books on display, assuming you didn't buy them just because they looked good. I figure my apartment will look "decorated" with books no matter what I do, in the absence of any other scheme.
P.S. Don't women enjoy the occasional sprinkle of casual sexism when it is delivered in a British accent?
Depends. How good is your accent?
I once mentioned to someone that my parents-in-law keep their books in alphabetical order within genre (fiction, poetry, etc.) so books can actually be found if you're looking for one, and I how I admired their discipline in maintaining their system. Then this person said to me that that was really dumb, that clearly the best way to organize books was by size, because it looked most attractive that way.
I immediately concluded that this person did not realize that books had content and were not just decoration, but I hindsight I've decided to give her more slack. After all, to keep my cheap Ikea bookshelves from falling over and killing someone, I too keep the heavier books on the bottom shelves and the lighter books on top.
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