Because of my husband’s illness, I’ve been having time off work to care for him.
Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a holiday. I’m not lazing around the house and spending all my time reading – not that that’s what I get to do on holidays anyway (seriously, number of book read when I took 3 weeks off to get married = zero). If I wasn’t caring for my sick husband, I’d probably be on stress leave myself. There’s some fucked up shit going on in my personal life at the moment and my body’s response is to sleep it all off and tag team that with stress headaches.
Note – I barely ever get headaches, so when I get a headache, I can’t cope.
The one thing that is keeping me sane are my books – well that, and my faithful Pokemon, and my snuggly furbabies. My reading couch is nestled right beside our bookshelves, and ever since we moved in I’ve planned on reorganising the shelves because we just threw the books on randomly, thinking we’d only be here temporarily.
It’s looking to be more long-term now, so I sucked it up and reorganised my bookshelves. It was an activity at once soothing and stressful – but in a good way. Books make me happy! Organising things makes me feel accomplished! I had shelves overflowing with to-read books and too many books still on my shelves I knew I wasn’t going to read anytimes soon and that could afford to be packed away in a big industrial crate and live in our spare room.
The Messy Shelves
On the top shelf at the back are my husband’s and my own combined hardcover collectables, but he recently pulled some out, hence the gaps. In front is my adult collection – as you can see it’s very small, because I prefer to read YA.
The shelf below is absolutely chockers full of YA books that I’ve fit in anyway I can, order be damned.
The shelf below that has my most recent acquisitions, my ARCs, and a favourite series. This shelf was already cleared of books I’ve already read, which were put away in an industrial moving crate.
What I didn’t take a picture of was the other shelf on a different bookshelf full of sequels I’ve not yet read, or the space next to the front door on the other side of the room where my to-read ARCs seem to accumulate themselves.
Organising
Originally I wanted to make my bookshelf more like a library’s and arrange my to-read books by genre, that way I could easily pluck one off whenever I felt like reading a fantasy or a contemporary or whatever.
My problem was with the YA crossovers. Where do I put historical paranormal YA fiction like Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate? In the historical section or the paranormal section? Dystopians belong with sci-fi, but what about when they’re fantasy like Maria V Snyder’s Poison Study? Does magical realism fall under contemporary or fantasy?
And then I realised my biggest problem: I wasn’t sure which specific genre most of my to-read books are. I just love the blurbs, and I don’t want to have to dedicate way too much time to digging into whether this sci-fi should be placed under romance or not.
Anyway, who defines what’s a romance? I recently read a book other people were screaming ‘love triangle’ about and I didn’t see one in the pages at all. It’s all subjective.
In the end, after staring at my unordered books for about half a day and fighting off a headache, I decided to organise them all alphabetically by author.
The End Result
The top shelf is the sequels pile next to my read ARCs collection (those I’ve kept, I mean). The second, third, fourth, and half of the fifth shelves are now organised alphabetically, except I’m going to have to find another place for my old school fantasy novels on the bottom right because I just got in a new shipment of books in and need to make the space!
Please note – this isn’t the only bookshelf in the house, it’s just that this one is now ALL MINE. My husband has to use a different bookshelf that’s holding my adult books as well. He doesn’t mind – he’s very encouraging. He even offered to pack some of his books away to make room for mine but I didn’t think that was fair.
I love looking at my bookshelf.
It calms and soothes me, and my answer to retail therapy is always to buy another books.
There’s a quote I love that speaks very closely to how I feel looking at all of my unread books:
“A good book resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper.”
– David Quammen
Also, I just realised something – ALL of these books have been acquired/purchased since I started blogging nearly three years ago!
Share this:
About Nemo
A lover of kittens and all things sparkly, Nemo has a degree in English Literature and specialises in reviewing contemporary, paranormal, mystery/thriller, historical, sci-fi and fantasy Young Adult fiction. She is especially drawn to novels about princesses, strong female friendships, magical powers, and assassins.
Tez Miller
Book organisation is one of the most calming things for me, too. We don’t have control over much in life, but we can control our book shelving and lists 🙂
Nemo
It’s better than turning to other vices, to be sure.
Renee Bookboyfriends
Ah yes, organising bookshelves! I did it recently only because I had too many books to stack vertically anymore and stacked them horizontally instead! And I honestly think mine are just vaguely organised in series by author’s last name either than that, I don’t know! (but my bookshelf is only about a third of your’s size.
Thanks for sharing and good luck with all your reading!
Nemo
Any kind of reorganising soothes one’s soul, if one is bookish, I think. Actually I did wonder where the idea of stacking vertically came from – most spines are to be read as if the book were stacked horizontally. I think we’d fit more on the bookshelves that way, too. It might be a way to go in the future when I run out of room.
Bekka
I love your shelves! Black shelves always look so classy. I’m sorry that you’ve been going through some tough stuff recently. I hope everything starts looking up soon. Organizing your shelves is an excellent way to soothe and feel a sense of accomplishment and control.
I LOVE organizing my bookshelves. I always find myself wanting to re-organize but honestly, I love my system as it is right now. I have my books organized by genre – and yeah, going through them and trying to decide which crossover fell under which genre was trying. I did end up putting magical realism in with contemporary, though, and dystopia was by itself. Then I have adult, middle grade, and YA all separated as well.
Nemo
I think I would put magical realism with contemporary too, though it would be a tough call as some kind of cross over into paranormal. I’d probably keep dystopia as a subset of sci-fi because it’s a pretty big subgenre now and starting to find its own crossovers. I think I have some middle grade among my YA stuff but I’m not 100% sure about that. I like the sound of your shelves and would love to purr and drool over them ha ha!
Hebe
I love bookshelf organising – it’s such a soothing activity. The more complicated the system, the better – then I can justify taking longer over it 🙂
Nemo
I think a few years ago I would have agreed with you, with the complicated system, but nowadays I’m more mellowed out and alphabetical is good enough for me.
chucklesthescot
I really do feel for what you are going through. Before I developed depression in 2001 I had to watch both of my parents go through it, so I’ve seen and experienced it from all sides. It is soul destroying. Hopefully getting the right medication for your husband will help him to feel a bit better and get on that slow road to recovery.
I agree that sorting the book shelves is great therapy. My shelves are long overdue to be sorted but I want to clear out some of the older books before I start rearranging things. I’m seeing a few that I own on your shelves-Twilight, LOTR, Silver Brumby..and some I read but no longer own. Ooh I’m itching to get sorting my shelves!
Nemo
Thanks Chuckles! I know I can always count on a lovely message when you comment here.
Get sorting those shelves! It’s a magical feeling.
Romi
Oh I’m so sorry you’re having such a rough time, Nemo! I’m sending you a warm apple pie with icecream and caramel sauce through my screen, okay? Trust me, it’s going to be amazing.
Reorganising bookshelves is so therapeutic for me. I’ve done mine by colour and right now they’re alphabetically organised, though I’m thinking of changing it up again, soon. I tend to do that yearly. The achievement and seeing all the books you’ve read and are yet to read is so nice and gives so many memories. Good on you for doing this and achieving such a nice looking bookshelf at the end of it! Xxx
Nemo
Thank you, that pie sounds amazing 🙂
I would LOVE to see a colour coordinated shelf! I’ve long thought about doing it myself but I’m more into practicality than aesthetics – maybe with my already-read shelf, not my to-read one where I still need to find the damn book one day.
Eilonwy
Sending more good wishes to you and your husband.
I love seeing your bookshelves. I’m always really nosy about other people’s books, so getting a peek at your shelves is really fun.
Except it reminds me I need to reorganize my own library!
Nemo
I love seeing other people’s bookshelves too, and the I get all jealous over all the hardcovers because I tend to buy paperbacks.