Kylie Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Once they're full, I am going to ask my neighbours to move out so I can use their house as my library. I love the way you think Vanwa. I also love how you have your books organised. Books all over the house sounds wonderful. When I moved into my place I wanted all my books kept in one room, but I'm slowly branching out and realising that it's nice to have books wherever you go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 About three years ago, I saw a wooden desk-top bookshelf in a charity shop window but the shop was closed, and when I went back it had gone. About two months ago there was one on Ebay but I had to go out and was outbid before I got back and the auction ended. My Mum mentioned this to my Uncle and he used to be a carpenter, so he made me one! It's slightly different in that the 'poles' in this were just flat wood, but I love it! It contains just a few of my huge 'to read' pile! Empty Full In situ He has arthritis and Macular Degenerative Disease (an eye condition) so I know just how much love has gone into making this - he said he doesn't think he'll be able to make any more items. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucybird Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Wow Janet that's good. It would be good for the pile next to your bed or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 That's lovely, Janet My OH has something similar but sounds more like the one you'd seen on ebay, as it has a flat wood panel shelf and back. I love hand made pieces and I still have a lovely small table my dad made when he was at school. It has a checkerboard top and I use it as my beside table. It's over 60 years old now, and it's so well made there's been no separation of the top pieces or any of the joints, and it's my favourite piece of furniture I own. And it always has books on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Janet, that's absolutely beautiful! Kudos to your Uncle, he's really handy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vesolka Posted August 2, 2010 Share Posted August 2, 2010 Uhh, my organized book shelves... or not-organized. I have books on two locations: in my flat and at my parents' house. At home: I have around 4 large bookshelves with "everything" or, as I named it "Organized chaos" (recipe books, novels, must read books before I die, phylosophy, sociology, fiction, non-fiction, and also 2 bookshelves of ex-Yugoslavia and Russian books written in Cyrillic alphabet). My flat: Organized by: - travel guides, - vocabularies, lexicon etc. - books in English, - books in Spanish, - books in Russian, - books in Slovenian, - my boyfriend's books (engineering,...) - management, business, HR, etc. - sociology and religion, - books, waiting for me to read them, - and of course "organized chaos". We are seriously thinking of buying Kindle as I lately spend around 200 Euros for books/month. And of course, my boyfriend understands, that library is not an option Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'mRose Posted August 21, 2011 Share Posted August 21, 2011 I'm sure this has been brought up before, but how do you sort your books? Do they just go up there? Alphabetic order? Do you separate read and TBR? I'm constantly rearranging my book shelfs, right now they they are first separated in to Read, TBR, dictionaries, books from my childhood (like Nancy Drew, sweet vally high and so on) and my Boyfriends books. Then my read and TBR books are placed by categories. Swedish authors, chick lit, YA, regular books (this is a wide selection but basically anything that is not YA or fantasy or a classic), fantasy and classics. The read books are placed by series and the TBR books are placed by height. Yeah...when I write this down it sounds a bit crazy.... and I'll probably end up changing it next week :-) Are you as crazy as me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted August 21, 2011 Share Posted August 21, 2011 (edited) When we first built our bookshelves, I did organize the books so travel books have a couple of shelves, all the old orange spined Penguin paperbacks had a shelf and another for the Virago and Penguin classics, plus one for oversized hardbacks and one for poetry. Although these are mostly still the same, it's become a case of putting books where they'll fit, so tidy shelves now have books lain on top of other books and it's a bit of a free for all. I do still try to keep my TBR books together on one shelf (or more if needed - currently two). Apart from that, there's no alphabetization, no categorization and no organization to speak of! Edited August 21, 2011 by chesilbeach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted August 21, 2011 Share Posted August 21, 2011 I'm kinda odd with my books. I have one bookshelf for keep books and the rest is TBR! When I get a new book it goes right at the end of the shelf. The books then move slowly along until its the next book TBR. If I do it this way I read the book that has been on the shelf for the longest. I do it this way otherwise I would just be reading the next book I brought and with a massive TBR pile I just wouldnt be reading some of my books! I think I'm a bit odd doing it this way, but hey, it works for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'mRose Posted August 21, 2011 Share Posted August 21, 2011 (edited) I'm kinda odd with my books. I have one bookshelf for keep books and the rest is TBR! When I get a new book it goes right at the end of the shelf. The books then move slowly along until its the next book TBR. If I do it this way I read the book that has been on the shelf for the longest. I do it this way otherwise I would just be reading the next book I brought and with a massive TBR pile I just wouldnt be reading some of my books! I think I'm a bit odd doing it this way, but hey, it works for me! That is so clever I wish I had the willpower to do that. I tend to read what I just bought and then all my old books just stand there. :-( Edited August 21, 2011 by I'mRose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted August 21, 2011 Share Posted August 21, 2011 I'm kinda odd with my books. I have one bookshelf for keep books and the rest is TBR! When I get a new book it goes right at the end of the shelf. The books then move slowly along until its the next book TBR. If I do it this way I read the book that has been on the shelf for the longest. I do it this way otherwise I would just be reading the next book I brought and with a massive TBR pile I just wouldnt be reading some of my books! I think I'm a bit odd doing it this way, but hey, it works for me! This is an idea that I've been toying with today. I wouldn't arrange all my books according to when I bought them, that task would take me ages, but recently I feel like I can't remember all the books I've bought this year and I've been thinking it might be nice to dedicate one shelf in my bookcase to newly bought books and just line them up as they find their way into my apartment I aplaud you lauraloves! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 That's a great idea Laura. I would be tempted to try it for myself, but I know I would forever be skipping over books when I saw another coming up that I wanted to read more. It would still be fun to organise them in that way though. Unlike Frankie, I'd like to go back as far as I can, just so I can have some more reorganising fun. Thanks to sites like Goodreads and Librarything, I know exactly when and in what order I bought most of my books. I can't organise by genre because it drives me crazy trying to work out those cross-genre books. Mine are sorted alphabetically by author surname, which is boring but it works well. I have, however, separated fiction from non-fiction. My non-fiction section is a bit of a mess because I have tried to split it into auto/biographies, humour, language, travel etc. But I have that cross-genre problem here (Bill Bryson: humorous travel autobiographies ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 It would still be fun to organise them in that way though. Unlike Frankie, I'd like to go back as far as I can, just so I can have some more reorganising fun. Thanks to sites like Goodreads and Librarything, I know exactly when and in what order I bought most of my books. Haha But that would make the task more impossible for me, because the books in my old bookcase as also arranged by size so I can maximize the space. It would really throw the arrangement off if I were to organise everything by the date when I've bought each book. Just one shelf would be alright. I haven't marked down the year or the month when I bought each book to goodreads, but I do keep an Open Office document where I list all my books, in an alphabetized order according to the author. I can't organise by genre because it drives me crazy trying to work out those cross-genre books. Mine are sorted alphabetically by author surname, which is boring but it works well. I have, however, separated fiction from non-fiction. My non-fiction section is a bit of a mess because I have tried to split it into auto/biographies, humour, language, travel etc. But I have that cross-genre problem here (Bill Bryson: humorous travel autobiographies ). I know, that's a real pain, but I still do it though. It's irritating when I have an autobiographical book, about an author, and that's on a Rory list. Because I have different categories for each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 That is so clever I wish I had the willpower to do that. I tend to read what I just bought and then all my old books just stand there. :-( Thanks I am rather odd with my books and I know the books that I have just brought I will probably not get round to reading for a good couple of years, but it does encourage me to read some of my older books! This is an idea that I've been toying with today. I wouldn't arrange all my books according to when I bought them, that task would take me ages, but recently I feel like I can't remember all the books I've bought this year and I've been thinking it might be nice to dedicate one shelf in my bookcase to newly bought books and just line them up as they find their way into my apartment I aplaud you lauraloves! hehe! I don't have half as many books as you so I think this is why I've managed to organise it in this way, but id love to have just a shelf for my newly brought books! Would be really nice to be able to see just them! That's a great idea Laura. I would be tempted to try it for myself, but I know I would forever be skipping over books when I saw another coming up that I wanted to read more. It would still be fun to organise them in that way though. Unlike Frankie, I'd like to go back as far as I can, just so I can have some more reorganising fun. Thanks to sites like Goodreads and Librarything, I know exactly when and in what order I bought most of my books. I can't organise by genre because it drives me crazy trying to work out those cross-genre books. Mine are sorted alphabetically by author surname, which is boring but it works well. I have, however, separated fiction from non-fiction. My non-fiction section is a bit of a mess because I have tried to split it into auto/biographies, humour, language, travel etc. But I have that cross-genre problem here (Bill Bryson: humorous travel autobiographies ). I do like a bit of organisation to my books and I like the alpabetical author idea too, I just think id never read some of my books if I did it that way! Id love to be able to organise by genre but I don't think I have enough books to do that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyra Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Years ago I used to own about 2000 books. I grew up surrounded by books as my mum is a book lover also. Even now she keeps buying them, although she has no time to even browse them. Since I started working at the library, and considering the lack of space, I stopped trying to gather the books and I just borrow anything I want to read. I still manage to collect on my library ticket between 10-30 books at a time (I would take out more if they made the limit higher). I can't justify spending the money when it costs me nothing to request whatever I want from the library. I probably will start buying some when my living situation changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleW Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Mine grows quite naturally! Everytime I try to buy less, I even buy more... I try to get rid of some books now, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 hehe! I don't have half as many books as you so I think this is why I've managed to organise it in this way, but id love to have just a shelf for my newly brought books! Would be really nice to be able to see just them! I'm going to do this today/tomorrow, with the new books I got today and yesterday. I already have a Rory drawer (books organised in a drawer, just like Rory's in GG), I could call the 'recently acquired books' bookshelf my Laura shelf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 I'm going to do this today/tomorrow, with the new books I got today and yesterday. I already have a Rory drawer (books organised in a drawer, just like Rory's in GG), I could call the 'recently acquired books' bookshelf my Laura shelf YAY I've never had anything named after me before hehe! I have a couple of draws of books, but only because I have knowhere else for them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busy91 Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 I've tried to organize, but it is impossible, even after the purge. I have 2 bookshelves for my books. One bookshelf is 7 feet, the other is 4 feet. The seven foot shelf has to sections (left and right) and 5 or 6 shelves each side, and the smaller one has 4 shelves. In the past, I've tried to organize them by genre, I have it sort of organized, I can find things easier. But it is a very general organization. I have a section for classics, a secion for Health/Self Help, Music/Writing, another one for oversized. The smaller one has miscellanious books, and then I have some stacked on a bakers rack. I have no room and the Harry Potter, Star Wars and Star Trek books are in my sons room on his bookshelf, which is seven feet tall. I have too many darn books in my house! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickle Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 I kinda like to keep my books mixed up (I know shock horror to you guys) but I like to re-read books so when I am searching for a book or even when I am just browsing my bookshelf my eye is caught by an old favourite I haven't read in ages. I still need to get a few more shelves so I can clear out my little room maybe a task for the winter months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobblybear Posted September 9, 2011 Share Posted September 9, 2011 I have mine organised by size/cover (hardback and paperback), but that's it. Aside from that, it's a bit higgeldy-piggeldy. I have thought about sorting them by colour just for something different, but have never gotten around to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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