How To Organise Your Bookshelf!

There are so many ways you could organise your bookshelf, and the way to organise it instantly becomes harder with the increase on your collection of books. In saying this, most people need a way to know where all their books are, and having a list seems a bit too… professional. Not to mention, preventing yourself from buying more books is a bit of an impossibility. Would you really want to continuously update that list? Talk about a chore. The only organisation that people really are common with is separating the non-fiction from the fiction and that’s a pretty good habit in my books.

See what I did there?

Don’t cringe. You’re welcome. :P

OK. So I’ve decided to form a list on different ways to organise your books. I have discovered nine different ways to organise your shelf and some of those have a few sub-categories. So how about I stop my jabbering and we get started!

ONE: ALPHABETICAL

This is by far the most popular option, and in my opinion, the most practical. This way of organising can have many different outcomes, and I’m here to help you figure out which one will work best for you.

1

                  -      Alphabetical by Surname: This is the most popular option of the alphabet, and by far my favourite. (If you come across a co-authored book, I usually use the last surname on the spine.)

2

                  -      Alphabetical by First Name: This isn’t used as much, but it still can work. (If you come across a co-authored book, I generally use the first name printed on the spine.)

3

                  -      Alphabetical by Book Title: This is my least favourite option out of the three. Why? Because it can separate all of your series’. Having the first book at the end and the second in the middle can be infuriating. A helpful option if you really wanted to do this way would to organise your series’ by the series’ title opposed to the books title. That way it can work out better for you.
Another flaw in this is that your authors will also be separate, but that isn’t as big as a problem as the first. Unfortunately, I don’t have any ideas for helping you out with this. If you want your authors together, then I suggest finding a different way of organisation.

TWO: BY GENRE

When you get a lot of books upon your bookshelf, putting them in alphabetical order can be a bit confusing. Sure you know where it is, but with the large variety of genres, it’s just easier to find the book you’re after if it’s amongst the other books of its kind. Placing your contemporary books together and then having your fantasy books separate, can be helpful. When you’re in that mood for a love story, all you have to do is focus on a small section of your bookshelf rather than looking at all of it. Y’know what I mean?

You can even further this by having a ‘Middle Grade’ section, a ‘Young Adult’ section, an ‘Adult’ section and then your ‘Non-Fiction’ section. This way you have some organisation amongst your genres. So with your young adult section – for example – you could further organise that by separating all the genres within. The sci-fi from the high-fantasy and the low-fantasy from the contemporary. Get what I’m saying? Of course you do. Let’s move on!

THREE: BY SIZE

There are two ways to complete this organisation. It just depends on which you prefer.

1                   -      Height: There’s something aesthetically pleasing about having your bookshelf range from the shortest books you own to the tallest. Or vice versa. Admittedly this isn’t a favourite of mine because once again this organisation can split your authors and it can split your genres if the publishers have decided to change the size or if you’ve accidently bought the wrong size. So that might be a problem, or it might not. It’s up to what works best for you.

2                  -      Width: This isn’t a popular option. It isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as the first option, your books are in a muddled order and the heights are a mess. But, hey, at least you know what’ your biggest book in your shelf and what’s your smallest. I guess that helps?

FOUR: BY COLOUR

Ah. The infamous rainbow shelf. This seems to be taking readers by storm. This is just like the height option. It’s aesthetically pleasing to your eyes. Your books look amazing and it brings a certain brightness to the room, but! Not all books are beautifully coloured. Some won’t fit. Your authors will be muddle. Your series’ will become separate because they aren’t all the same colour. Some of the spines have such a range of colour that they don’t fit anywhere. Most of your books are probably black or white. Am I right? So where do they go? Of course. Give them their own section. What about the grey books? Are they black? Are they white? Do you have enough to make their own section? Can you fit them under a ‘sort-of’ tree? Like ‘sort of green’ or ‘sort of blue’. What about coloured text with a black or white background? What then?

So this organisation can be a bit difficult to figure out at first. Everyone is different about how they keep this order. Where you put those books that don’t fit anywhere is completely up to you. But hey, at least the coloured portion of your bookshelf looks sexy as eff.

FIVE: BY FAVOURITE 

This is a pretty good option if you like to prioritise your books. If you want to be able to have your most favourite books on the top of your shelf, in easy reach and together, then this might be the way to go. The problem with this order is: What to do with the unread half? (Don’t lie. At least half of your shelf is unread. That’s okay though, everyone has too many unread books in their shelf.)

What I like to do is with the unread books is organise them from which is the highest on my to-be-read (TBR) list to what I’m not that interested in. This is actually a good way to realising which books you probably aren’t going to read and which series’ you aren’t going to finish. Speaking of unfinished series’, it’s probably best of me to mention that your series will be separate in this way of organising unless you plan on putting the unread books of certain series amongst your favourite books.

 

 SIX: READ, HALF-READ AND UNREAD

Your first category, in order by how ever you find best (I prefer Alphabetical by Surname) should be what you’ve read. The second category, should be your half-read. I like to put this one in Alphabetical by Surname as well. The third, is the unread section. This section I like to order from highest on my TBR list to the least likely to read. It helps you discover which books you’re going to grab next. This order may also separate your series’ and authors. Just be warned.

 SEVEN: PURCHASED ORDER

Maybe your one of those people who can remember what order you bought your books. Maybe you just like to keep that visible for yourself or others. Personally, I’m not a fan of this way of organisation. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t like separating my authors and series’ and this will most definitely do that unless you plan to wait until the entire series is out. Even then, authors are paid to bring out new books and sometimes they will choose to spice things up and publish a selection of short stories to a series you love. Or maybe they will write a spin-off series. You know it’s true. And you know you will buy it eventually.

EIGHT: PUBLICATION ORDER

This way is fiddly. You’ll have to search in the front of every book you own for the publication date. Then, according to that you have to put your books in that order. You want to know something? I’m not good at remembering numbers. So firstly, when putting the books in order, you’ll have to re-search in books for the publication order, because chances are, you’ll forget. Then, once your shelf is in order and looking pretty, you have to remember when all books are published. Plus, your series’ and authors will be separate.

NINE: BY CHARACTER

There are a few options for this one. This is when you grab a character from a book, and place them in order by character. There are several characters you can pick for this option: leading protagonist, favourite character, first name in the blurb, leading antagonist, etc. Any name in the book will work. (As long as you remember them.) This way of organisation will also split up your authors and series’. Some of these options will leave you wondering where to put your unread books. 

                    -      Alphabetical Characters: Placing the characters’ of your choice in order of the alphabet.

2                  -      Favourite Characters: Putting the characters’ of your choice in order by favourite to least. Or vice versa. 

3                  -      Quirky Characters: Putting the characters’ in order by level of weirdness.

4                  -      Grown Characters: Putting it in order by the characters’ that have grown the most throughout the book.

AND THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

I hope this was helpful. If you have any ways of organising your bookshelf that I haven’t mentioned, please feel free to leave a message to let me know. Also, don’t be afraid to let me know if you liked this or not. I would love to hear criticism!

See you next time!

Love, Harley.

Note: None of these images are mine. I have found all of these on Google Images. If one is yours, please let me know and I promise to give you credit, or to take it down. Which ever you prefer.