Book Arrangement Mayhem!

[als]

So, I've been handed a new desk and a new bookcase. The desk is an ugly 70's office affair that weighs about half a ton, it's actually awesome and I love it! The bookcase probably cost a packet out of the back of a Sunday supplement and it is fairly rubbish.

So I've spent the weekend sorting piles of paperbacks onto the new shelves and I was wondering how other members arrange their books. Are you a piler? Or do you prefer some anally retentive order to them that only you can understand?

Here's mine. Downstairs I've gone with all my favourite authors, each having a little section of their own. Upstairs I've ordered them by publisher and I have to say it looks lovely. Now, it does mean that I have horror, crime, sleaze and occult mixed up, but I've spotted books I've not read yet and had previously forgotten about.

I have one friend who is an avid book collector and she arranges all her books by order of preference! The amazing thing is, she can instantly find any book you ask her about!

[dem bones]

there's very little lovelier than investigating the contents of a bookcase!

i favour the sling 'em any available space approach and i'm pretty good at making sense of the chaos. that said, it's not very fair on mrs. dem. who sometimes tidies them up into some kind of order, whereupon i can't find anything. but arranging them in order of preference? that would trigger complete mental collapse!

[mattofthespurs]

Piler I'm afraid. I do have all the PBoH's and the Fontana's (ghost and horror) in one area but other than that they are scattered amongst the twelve bookcases that adorn my tomb.

[junkmonkey]

I always find other people's bookcases fascinating and get scared when I go into a friend's house and find there are NO books.
This site is fun to visit when you get the urge to rummage through someone else's Library:

www.lookshelves.com/

Here's my contribution:

www.lookshelves.com/lookshelves/tag/liam

[pulphack]

four bookcases over two rooms, which started out in a kind of genre order (broken by authors who crossed - Chesterton in essayists, but the Father Brown stuff also there rather than in old crime, for instance), and had non-fiction and fiction seperated, but which has degenerated over three years of not getting round to sorting out into something akin to a junk shop with any semblance of order rapidly disintegrating.

always find it hard to resist scanning others book shelves, and it takes some will power to not pick out interesting items to look at. some people wouldn't take kindly to it.

does anyone on here actually manage to keep a decent order without regular effort? i've always found that it can get out of hand all too quickly.

[jamesdoig]

Here's part of the study:



And a bookcase will some favourite Vaultish paperbacks:

[noose]

My humble collection:

[als]

Brilliant! I love having a nosey at other people's bookcases, even if it's not genre stuff I'm into.

Thanks for posting pics, that's nearly as satisfying as actually having a proper nosey!

[mattofthespurs]

After enjoying the other pics it's only fair that I put up a few of mine.

Really must sack the maid. The place is a tip.













The pictures probably represent about a tenth of the collection. The wife can't wait until I pop my clogs...Evil cow.

[Craig Herbertson]

I can only give you an impressionistic photo as the room is so small. I also can't show you my work desk as apparently the wife would instantly leave me if the mess was revealed.

If invited to any of your houses I probably wouldn't speak for about two hours while I pored through these wonderful collections

[andydecker]

Thank god I am not the only one who has a room that looks like that

[mattofthespurs]

I know the feeling Craig.
The instant I'm through the doors of someone elses house I'm poring over their bookcases (assuming they have some. The amount of houses I've been in with nary a book to look at...And no, I'm not a burglar).

[Jojo Lapin X]

I have always enjoyed staying in luxury hotels when I can, but at the same time I always felt there was something off about even the finest of hotel rooms. One day it struck me what the problem is: There are rarely any books in them. Except for a bible. So it is like staying at the house of someone who only reads the bible. And probably wants you to read it too.

[mattofthespurs]

A room without books is just a box without soul.

[Craig Herbertson]

occasionally on tour in Germany I've been so badly off for books that I've tried to pick through the Gideon bible in German, usually after a few drams...

If there are no books or no musical instruments in a house I start looking for ghosts.