My Shipshape Shelves
How do you organize your bookshelves?
Some of us dread this question. I am sometimes one of them. Especially if I have moved within the last year…which has been four times in the last three years. My bookcase is always one of the first things I unpack. Maybe because the boxes are so heavy…
I didn’t have a bookcase a space reserved for books growing up. It wasn’t really until I was halfway through college that I really started my own collection of books and building up my personal library.
My shelves originally started out as stacks of books on and in my headboard. As I bought books, I tried grouping them by genre, but sometimes the different sizes of books got in the way of that. And then I just started getting so many books on my TBR that I just started stacking them up next to the lantern.
After I graduated college, I bought a bookcase. True, it’s not the best and one day will fall apart on me has fallen apart on me, but for now it works. When I first bought it I had it organized the best, and I’m trying to get back to that. Despite the photos I took, I just couldn’t seem to replicate this organizational pattern after I moved…and then moved again 6 months later…and then again 7 months later. Erg.
I think I was avoiding my physical books because they are not organized how I know they were. And also I have so many books I need to review that it’s becoming ridiculous. I have even made a stack of books that need to go away next to my bookcase, and I don’t feel that I’ve gotten that many more books to throw off the balance so much.
So I finally sat down and did some serious book labor.
~ BEFORE ~
Top Shelf: anthologies, six copies of my college graduation booklet, some Story Plant books, recently acquired books, bookish things and bookmarks, my sign that needs to go to school and the temporary home to my vase (now permanently homed in my bedroom)
All these books are on my TBR.
First Shelf: DOUBLE STACKED random books
All these books are on my TBR.
Second Shelf: DOUBLE STACKED on the ends, home to my two favorite series (Bloody Jack and Outlander), my literary YA books, a few random books standing up on my TBR, and on the far right in the back my Kristin Hannah and Elin Hilderbrand books and some historical fiction about Edward Plantagenet and King Richard III
Bottom Shelf: (clockwise from back left) DOUBLE STACKED with the classics, some nonfiction and other oddities, partial Diary of a Wimpy Kid collection, Hunger Games, a few literary fiction and randoms, some romance novels
Most of the classics in that are hidden in the back left I have not read, and some of the ones standing up (like my Outlander Companion and flower book).
On the Right: The small stack of books I have weeded out are off the to side. I read all but one.
~ AFTER ~
Top Shelf: (clockwise from back left) anthologies, all Story Plant Books, books I purchased for my classroom, immediately-next TBRs, YA books, the book of my name
All these books are on my TBR.
First Shelf: (clockwise from back left) romances, literary fiction, historical fiction, light and chicklit type reads…DOUBLE STACKED on the outside
All these books are on my TBR.
Second Shelf: This shelf didn’t change much. I added a few books in the middle to my literary YA stack and the standing books and removed some from the back right stack.
Bottom Shelf: This shelf also didn’t change much. It only received my hardback copy of Huck Finn and a few to add to my randoms pile on the front right.
On the Right: I added more to my go-away pile!!
Here they are side by side to compare:
It looks better right? Not as scary?
Alright, Mr. Demille, I’m ready for my close-up.
(Fun Fact: I always thought it was Mr. De Vil…like Cruella De Vil…until I looked it up!)
TOP SHELF
FIRST SHELF
SECOND SHELF
BOTTOM SHELF
It is the Friday Feature Follow!
Ugh. This is actually something I’m planning on re-doing over summer. For some reason, after my most recent move I could not organize my bookshelves the way I’d had them before. I looked at the pictures from my previous residence (I loved how they were organized!), but I just couldn’t get it right. 
Girl of 1000 Wonders 