From Shelf Awareness
Earlier this week,
Pulitzer-winning author Geraldine Brooks wrote an article for the Guardian entitled "People of
the Bookshelf" (and if you're reading this, you're
certainly one of us). In it, she talks about her unusual method of organizing
her bookshelves:
"I start out
conventionally enough, alpha by author. But while I take account of the first
letter of the writer's surname, I have other ambitions for my shelves that
transcend the conveniences of mere alphabetical accuracy. It's impossible for
me to place one book alongside another without thinking about the authors, and
how they would feel about their spine-side companion.
"I arrange my
shelves as I would seat guests at a dinner party. Anne Tyler and Anthony
Trollope both seem devoted to a diligent scrutiny of manners. So I imagine
them, shelved side by side, comparing notes on the mores of their respective
eras.
"I thought I was
alone in my craziness, until I confessed it to a friend whom I consider a model
of sanity in most respects. 'That's nothing,' he said. He confided that he had
a 'punishment shelf' in his garage, reserved for writers he does not
like."
My own shelves are arranged,
very very loosely, by category in nonfiction. But in fiction, a nearly complete
set of Tarzan books (the original editions, from my father) shares space with
Shakespeare and Dorothy Parker. I call them all classics.
We wondered, on Twitter and Facebook, how you shelve your
books. A good number of you don't organize at all (Deborah wrote: "very
randomly--life's more adventurous that way"), while most stick with the
tried-and-true alphabetical; shelving by color is popular, too. @bookletting
replied: "1st, by when I read them." @Peacock10 does it "By
height. Tall to short then to tall again. My eye needs symmetry." And
@StaceyLMason organizes "by how a book made me feel."
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