So I’m in a position where I need to reorganize my bookshelves.
I realized that so much of how I organize books depends on how much space I
have. When I have lots of room, I can afford to have more keeper shelves and
maintain a broad collection of books from all my areas of interest. I have many
shelves of the books I’ve written, the books I’ve written that are translated
to other languages, shelves of friends’ books, and signed books. Plus there are
books I organize by interest—medieval culture, castles, knighthood, medieval literature,
the courtly tradition, the Pre-Raphaelites, mythology, psychology, world religions,
literary novels, poetry, and the list goes on.
I love my bookshelves! Browsing is a joy, and I continually find
old gems I haven’t looked at in a decade. If I had my choice, I’d leave them as
is. But I’m consolidating homes after living in a few places of the last
decade, and that means merging collections—and, worse, losing the home of the
biggest, best bookshelves.
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| One of several shelves I had to dismantle. |
Minimalist sensibilities might say that’s a great thing. Do
less with more! And if it was anything in my life except for books, I’d agree
with that idea. But we love books, don’t we? Parting with them is like saying
goodbye to old friends.
First to go were books that weren’t favorites—works I’ve
only read once and didn’t feel called to read again. That wasn’t so bad. But
then there was the pairing down of my own foreign editions, which was hard because
I had hoped to keep one of everything. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible, so
I mailed books to libraries all over the country, re-homing them.
Now, I’m in a period of stasis, trying to figure out what can
go next. Most days I contemplate building more bookshelves in my new home to
accommodate all the volumes. But in my more productive periods of organization,
I try to choose the “best of” books from each favorite category. I don’t need
all the books I have on mythology, so I pick my top two or three choices, and
so on.
We’ll see if this yields a more manageable collection. For
now, I can say that I have renewed appreciation for cyber bookshelves like
those I have at Goodreads. Even if I no longer possess the physical copy of the
book, I can keep track of what I’ve read there—when I remember to enter it. I
also like that I can put a book on multiple shelves so that it’s not just a
book poetry, it’s also a book by a friend and a book I read for book club.
Having the ability to sort books into topical categories and specialized fields
makes it easy for me to look up all the books I’ve read for book club or all
the books I’ve consulted on Avalon.
But I’d love to know what you do! Do you keep track of books
in a platform like Shelfari or Goodreads? Do you use a notebook and paper to
list books you’ve read in a year or by series? And how to you keep your home shelf
or shelves organized? Share with me here and I’ll give one reader a print copy
of my Texas Playmaker story, THE PERFECT CATCH. Book #2 in that series is now available - GAME ON!
