I love books, I really do. I have them all over my house. Before I started blogging I was always picking up a book here and there from used book sales. My public library has a small bookcase that is stocked with used books that they sell. Although they have a huge sale every summer I know I can go to those shelves any time throughout the year and possibly find some goodies.
I keep my own books all neat and tidy in my bedroom on a wooden bookcase that had previously belonged to my children. When they outgrew it I packed up their books and filled it with mine. (Note to shelf – remove those old Pokemon stickers) When that was full I put some on the shelf in my nightstand next to my library books, and then piled more next to the nightstand and then piled more next to that pile.
Now that I get books to review my own books seem to get neglected. I don’t get to those or my library books as often as I would like. With more books I’ve needed more space. We have floor to ceiling shelves in our family room that contain special books – reference books, sets of books we bought the kids (Time Life, etc.), cookbooks, the family bible. When a friend was moving he gave my mom a set of wooden shelves and she gave one of them to me. I put them next to our fireplace and that was a lifesaver! Of course I filled that baby right up. There is a method to my madness. I keep the books to be reviewed on the closest shelf and they are in order of how they arrived. Books that are autographed are on the top shelf and books that I plan to review but aren’t committed to are two rows deep on the other shelves. I also have a row of books that I’m reading (kind of) on our big, square coffee table. And sometimes there’s a few under it too… To everyone else it just looks like I have books piled everywhere but I really do have a system. Really.
So I was just wondering, where do you keep your books and how do you organize them? Do you have shelves, boxes, bins, baskets or something else to contain them in? Please tell me you have books piled up somewhere too! I can’t be the only one who has them in every room of the house…
Posts
It is terrible isn't it? All these freaking books!?!? And review copies to top it all off!
ReplyDeleteI currently have 2 (SMALL!) bookcases that I'm using on a regular basis. They seem to work ok, but I'm running out of room on them and fast, like 2 more books will kill them fast.
So, I need another bookcase.
I also sell my books on Amazon so I have a shelf in the living room and a shelf on the kidlet's bookcase in her playroom dedicated to those. I want to buy something to store these in though, like a huge plastic bin, because they get dusty or fall down etc. I want to keep them in good condition to be sold.
So, yeah, books are plentiful in my home. I'm not feeling to overrun by them quite yet but I know it'll happen. :(
Good luck to you!
Books, everywhere! Yes, I do have them everywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't help that we just moved and I want to get all my books into a database as I put them all up. I use LibraryThing.com to get my books into a database; I hesitate to say organized because that is really just my way to know what I have!
I try to organize each shelf by type (children, religion, fiction, etc...) and then alphabetical by author or title depending on the books...or by theme...or by whatever makes sense in my head.
Yes, books EVERYWHERE! We have 7 book shelves (6 ft ones) now and still have books that won't fit on those shelves.
I have 4 bookshelves. I keep my books alphabetical by authors last name. Which means, A-R is on the shelves. The others, two big plastic totes full of books, live at the bottom of my husbands closet. This way they are easy to get to in case I want to read one but out of the way enough that the kids don't play with them.
ReplyDeleteHaving so many books, I sometimes forget if I own one I haven't read yet. Most of my organization is because of an excel spreadsheet. I have tabs for a list of the books I own, what I've already read, what I plan to read for challenges, my wishlist, what I have borrowed from the library (with due dates), etc.
It's hard to keep track of so many books.
I have books everywhere. I currently need to find a place to put up a new shelf because I am out of room. I have books stacked next to my computer and all over a shelf in my bedroom. I have two shelves in my living room that are full. One of them is overfull. I have another full shelf in my hallway which is full. Believe me there are books everywhere.
ReplyDeleteMost of my books are in our "media" room - the room with our PCs and TV. The books I want to read immediately are in a small bookcase in our bedroom - on my side of the bed.
ReplyDeleteDebbie I can totally relate to this. I need a separate house just to house my books I think. LOL hmm need to win a lottery then.
ReplyDeleteBefore I started blogging I had one bookcase in the family room and one in my bedroom plus one in the basement family room. Well sadly since blogging it has grown to three bookcases in the family room plus piles here and there.
Thankfully my piles of books are contained to the family room and the bedroom.
I did have a basket system but that sadly didn't last. I think this summer I am going to do a huge overhaul of the books and get into some kind of organzing.
So Debbie your not alone.
Right now the majority of books are actually on bookshelves. I do have a stack near my computer of ones that have been sent to me for review and another stack of books I've won from blogs but haven't gotten to read yet. There is one more stack for books I'm giving away on my blog or through LibraryThing. We definitely need another bookshelf though because ours are starting to get double stacked and I hate that. In the next month or so we will be moving from a small apartment into a much more spacious house. I plan on turning the loft area into a library of sorts. I can't wait to have a room set aside mostly for books!!
ReplyDeleteMy father in law laughs at me because all of our fiction is alphabetical by author and then the non-fiction is grouped by general subjects. I figure with all of our books we need some kind of organization to them or I'd never be able to find the book I want to read next!
I'm from a family of readers, so I grew up with bookshelves in every room. We would go on new home tours and my mom would always complain about how new homes never displayed any books or bookshelves! My parents love to read and they passed that on to me-and we went to the library all the time as a kid, so we had books we bought and library books all over our house. Now I have a house of my own and my husband gets after me for having books everywhere. He jokes that I add books just so I am surrounded by books all the time (And I work in a library, which means I really am around books ALL the time!)
ReplyDeleteI have a shelf of to be reviewed books, a shelf of books I've read and a shelf of books I own that I'd like to read, and one for library books. We're moving into a house soon, and I'm planning on making one room a library. It depends on the shelf, but I organize by release date, review date and by author last name.
We have a really small house, so we pretty much have books in every room -- the bathrooms are really the only exception. Even the utility room has books (cookbooks).
ReplyDeleteI'm not very organized, but I keep the books I'm currently reading and need to start soon next to the bed and then I have a small row of ARCs on a shelf in our "reading room" (really, it's just a junky room, but it has books on three walls and a fat leather chair, so it's the reading room). I'm not accepting many books, now, for the reasons you mentioned. I have so many already and I miss being able to just walk to the shelves to flip through books and read whatever grabs me instead of being scheduled, so now I'm down to only accepting books that I'm dying to read.
I like Cindy's idea of a separate house for the books! We have shelves in every room with books divided by subject -- a sports shelf, music shelf, nonfiction/history shelf, sci-fi/fantasy shelf... I think I've missed a few, have to go check...
ReplyDeleteHA! I had literally had books hiding and piled everywhere until about 3 years ago. My DH then redid a room that really wasn't doing anything as a library. Ceiling to floor one wall of bookshelves. All was well and good for awhile..... I am realizing that I do need to cull the herd, they're hiding under beds again.....
ReplyDelete