NP - How do you sort your books?

[Bekah]

Because I sometimes actually have to go and hunt for a book,  and because I have several thousand books,  I try to keep my organization simple and useful.   I have three rooms of books - one room for fiction, , one for non-fiction and one for both but these are newer.   Fiction is organized alphabetically by author,  non-fiction by subject-matter.   Each room has its own set of books and is arranged separately - the books in one room go from A-Z and in the next room from A-Z - no split in the middle - the M - R section is not in a separate room.  (heh) .  Non-fiction is by subject-matter - old history is in one room and the rest is in the shared room for newer books.  Books get rotated into the old book rooms (stacks?) as the new book room (office/den?) fills up (over and over).  

There is one exception - classics and special books go in a separate bookcase - all Pynchon books are there,  for instance,  as well as Faulkner,  Nabokov and some others dear to my heart.  

All this happened because my library room filled up and so I took the older books and put them in other rooms - then I arranged them - it took years. (heh)

Moving?  Separate your books into fiction and non-fiction and then into old books and newer (or more frequently checked) books.  Then pack into boxes.  When you get where you're going unpack the newer books and put them into whatever order you want - alpha,  color,  size,  subject,  ? -  and shelve.  Leave the older ones until you have time.  

When I move or as I get older,  I'm going to trash most of these books - all the ones in the back rooms anyway.  I'm not young and  I don't want them crowding me out of some tiny space.  I don't want my kids to have to deal with all these which are mostly worthless anyway. 

Bekah 


On Aug 12, 2012, at 4:01 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

> 
> Colors are very important to me. That's why it always takes so long to reorganize. Actually you have to live surrounded by your books to recognize the fitting patterns. 
> 
> On 12.08.2012 11:19, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>> 
>> Alphabetically? Hardly! I create nests along genre, color, nationality etc. To prevent this from becoming too sterile I place a good deal of book completely illogical and add some more or less meaningful installations  like, for instance, putting Ratzinger's book on Christian mysticism ("Schauen auf den Durchbohrten") in between an introduction to Voodoo and a photography book by Nobuyoshi Araki. One effect of this practice is that I fear removals (it always takes half a year to reorganize the library). Another one that my wife seldom finds a book without asking me. But that's OK: I need my personally designed library order to feel - at least a little bit - at home in this world.     
>> 
>> On 12.08.2012 10:21, Kris Williams wrote:
>>> I start with genre, then alphabetically, then they get re-read, then I cross reference, after that I spill wine on some pages...next thing you know, Hemingway is sleeping with Platt, and Poe watches through a window.  Then I start over with genre...sigh...
>>> 
>>> On Aug 12, 2012 12:34 AM, "Prashant Kumar" <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've had to reorganise my collection recently and was idly wondering how plisters do it (if at all), and why?
>>> 
>>> P.
>> 
>