So, I’m guessing that we all have some bookshelves in our rooms, right? And I’m also guessing that these shelves are pretty important to you. I know that my two shelves are my favorite things about my room. They’re basically where I keep some of my greatest memories and inspiration. But how is everything organized? We’ve talked on the blog before about what your stacks of books might say about you, but what about your bookshelves? I’ve seen lots of photos of different organization techniques — organizing by author, by color, by series, or totally random. They all have their merits, of course. But which one do you prescribe to?
I got to thinking about shelving techniques when I saw this Book Riot post about a couple of who shelved their books in a way that would only make sense to them. They were merging their book collections after moving in together and decided to create their own shelving system. My favorite shelf of theirs is the “Middle-Aged White Guy Problems” shelf that includes, naturally, Jonathan Franzen’s novels. There’s something so awesome about this shelving technique. It’s almost as though a code has been created on their bookshelf. Whenever visitors peruse these shelves, they’ll ponder to themselves what the order and organization might mean. But they can never possibly know. How neat!
To speak for myself, I don’t really have a shelving technique. One of my shelves houses books mainly from my childhood and teens, and the other one houses all recent book purchases. The Harry Potter series and its affiliate books have their own shelf entirely. When I got my second bookshelf, I began to run out of room rather quickly. So I tried something new — stacking books horizontally and fitting them together like puzzle pieces. I quite like the effect that this has created and it does offer more space for the fruits of future book-buying sprees.
What do your shelves look like? Do you have a special system for organizing your books? Share it in the comments!
– Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
