Idiosyncratic Book Shelving 101

Idiosyncratic Book Shelving 101 When my husband and I bought our house six years ago, we merged our bookshelves for the very first time. Neither of us had a shelving system we were overly attached to (I just put things where I could fit them, and he added  books in the order he read them), so we decided to make one up. Why alphabetize or genre-sort when we could do something wholly original, something that only made sense to the two of us  because who cares if anyone else understands our bookshelves? After spending the first quarter of this year renovating our living room, complete with new built-in shelves and a  reading nook, we got to pull our  books out of the boxes theyd been tucked away in for three months and have another go at The Shelving System That Only We Understand. Heres what happened. First, we took out all the  books and spread them on the floor. You try sorting hundreds of books and not getting frizzy hair. As we went through our collections, we made stacks of books that just felt like they went together  because of connections in voice, theme, author, or what they reminded us of. The husband hadnt weeded his collection EVER, and I hadnt weeded in the six years since we moved into the house, so we also got rid of A LOT of  books. Were talking duplicates (and triplicates.and sixtuplicates, which is a word now, because we had six, count em, copies of Catch-22), galleys of books I later bought in hardcover, things we enjoyed but are never going to read again, and the ones wed had sitting around but have absolutely zero desire to keep forever. There are books in every room of our house, and were running out of wall space for shelves, so it was time to say goodbye. Heres a look at the giveaway pile in progress. At the finish line, we had 19 bags of  books to donate. As we sorted through the boxes, each of us made mini-piles of books we wanted to group together. Then we compared our mini-piles, combined the ones that were similar-ish, and started shelving. My husband calls this process heat mapping, as in, the closer one title is to another, the more they have in common, the hotter their connection. You know, according to our super-specific system. First, we tackled the new built-in shelf. 1) Old  books, collectibles, and newish  books that look collectible with their jackets off 2) Vonnegut, humor, thrillers, manly  books we didnt have other homes for 3) Quirky/weird/dark fiction with awesome coversplus Ayn Rand and some John Krakauer  because who knows, we were drinking 4) Badass lady writers 5) Sex and food because LOGIC. Heres a closer look at the two bottom shelves, which people seem most interested in so far. Yes, thats Jenna Jameson sitting atop the Hite Report and the famous Kinsey study. Then we moved over to the  reading nook, where we resolved to keep weeding until we could fit everything onto the three shelves and have open space for adding  books in the future. Culling completed, we finalized our heat mapped piles and starting placing them wherever there was room. 1) The Complete  Calvin Hobbes, plus a few humor titles that needed homes, plus engagement picture from the Kansas City Public  Library. 2) The complete Toni Morrison (stacked), African and African-American fiction, Dumas, and Dickens 3) Fiction with fantasy, magic realism, mindfuckery. Also a misshelved David Grann essay collection. 4) Anne Rice and the Master Commander series. 5) Harry Potter, The Hitchhikers Guide, Chronicles of Narnia, assorted C.S. Lewis theology 6) War novels, war history, mob stories 7) Contemporary fiction and YA 8) Essays and creative nonfiction 9) Memoirs, plus novels by Barbara Kingsolver, Jhumpa Lahiri,  Margaret Atwood (who would all be on the Badass Lady Writer shelf if I had more room). 10) Classics 11) All-time  favorites and complicated relationships: Mary Doria Russell, Adam Ross, Jennifer Egan, Donna Tartt, Michel Faber, Gillian Flynn, among others. 12) Middle-Aged White Guy Problems 13) Assorted dude  books 14) Short story collections,  books about  books 15) More classics And heres a closer look at the favorites shelf and the Middle-Aged White Guy Problems collection. This concludes your daily dose of bookshelf voyeurism. Now tell me, readers, how do YOU shelve your  books? Any crazy systems you want to share? ____________________ Book Riot Live is coming! Join us for a two-day event full of books, authors, and an all around good time. Its the convention for book lovers that weve always wanted to attend. So we are doing it ourselves.