NP - How do you sort your books?

[Keith Davis]

Dude, you are way over-thinking this.

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Prashant Kumar <
siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:

> At the moment I have approximately 500 books, and am moving to a rather
> tiny one bedroom apartment in the city (from the same, though). What I'm
> doing is entering every book into an excel spreadsheet I'm using as a
> database, as I pack. The database has edition info (publisher, translator
> etc), dewey numbers and I'm going to start putting down date of
> acquisition. That way I can keep track of everything (like books on loan to
> certain indigent acquaintances - I'm sure plisters know a few), and watch
> my reading habits evolve. (Interesting because I can then put in code to do
> things like identify interesting books by trawling the internet, price the
> books and whatnot. I need to find the time to waste first though.)
>
> I am rather young and I figure that if I can't prevent the coming
> Bücherdämmerung I can at least forestall it.
>
> P.
>
> On 12 August 2012 22:15, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>


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