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Here’s the thing about bookshelves that is new and different in an age of e-books: my physical bookshelves don’t necessarily reflect who I am as a reader at this point in my life, but they do reflect my life, both past and present. They have evolved, especially over the last 15 or so years, and I have such fun plans for them to evolve in the future too! And also, like planners, they are deeply personal. One of my plans for my future bookshelves is to have a copy of Serpent & Dove, and the upcoming sequel Blood & Honey! I may not be planning a special section for witches on my future bookshelves, but a YA and/or fantasy section is very, very likely! If you enjoy either of those genres, would like to try something new, or just like to talk books with people, you’re invited to join us for Virtual Book Club on Friday, September 18th at 7:30 p.m. CST to discuss Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin. Registration is open HERE.
As primarily an e-book reader, I do still value physical books. They just aren’t my go to right now. My Kindle is so convenient with only 37 books downloaded at present. Am I actively reading or planning to read all of them soon? Nope, but I want to keep track of those titles for one reason or another, and that is the easiest way to do so in my Kindle library of nearly 500 purchased titles. But this post is about bookshelves, yes yes, I know. I didn’t rejoin the readerly life until a few years ago, and then it was as an e-reader, not a reader of physical books, so that is something to know when looking at my bookshelves. What about those physical books that I want to keep track of? Those go on my chest of drawers, and yes eventually the stack gets high enough that I start standing new additions beside the pile rather than on top.
Without further adieu, welcome to my bookshelves! When moving into our home and organizing it, we wanted our living room (where most of the bookshelves are) to be very functional for our family, which now includes two elementary aged boys, a large dog, and two adults. Since we settled in, there have been toys at the bottom and adult books at the top of the tall bookshelves, and the sturdiest bookshelves hold the children’s books because they can handle the books and the children (which when we moved included one child who was just starting to walk). So yes dear readers, my “adult” bookshelves are only two and they only have about half of the shelves full of books. Is this my ideal? Not really. Truly I’d love a room lined with shelves full of books and plush furnishings in the middle for lounging. This would also suit my family’s current reading habits, but it’s not my life, at least not yet. I can see the light, and the toys moving upstairs or out of my house, and the books coming to dominate, and it will happen in time. My list of titles to purchase is long already and includes most of my favorites from last few years, among others. While I’m reading mostly e-books and have two young advanced readers in my house, I am purposeful about the physical books I purchase. I’m not likely to read them, we don’t have a ton of space, and I want to feel good about my children picking up any book they find in our house (even if I do have to answer questions about periods before I’m ready, thank you Alanna).
For today, we have three shelves in our living room. One of the tall shelves holds nonfiction titles, photo albums, kids DVDs, magazines, a dump truck, a basket of balls, and a basket of dog toys (the balls are for sharing, so the dog has full privileges on the bottom shelf and doesn’t hesitate). The nonfiction are a blend of my books and my husband’s books. I have art history books, some books purchased at museums in Paris, titles from AP US History summer reading, nonprofit administration books, political history, cookbooks, and he has personal growth and finance books. We both have titles on spirituality, but that’s about it for our overlap. The shorter shelf next to it has toys and dress up clothes. Yes, everything that’s not connected to the TV is kid stuff. The other tall bookshelf has fiction books, select nonfiction, middle grade books (both mine and the kids), coloring and art supplies, and more toys (always. more. toys.). I have fiction broken up by classics, romance, and the titles I kept from school divided by if they were from high school or college. Don’t ask me why nonfiction is on both shelves because I haven’t the slightest idea.
These shelves are my favorites, and they’re also in the living room. My parents had them for as long as I can remember and my dad refinished them for me to take to my first apartment in college. They’ve been with me ever since and I adore them! At our last house, they held all of my books with knick knacks and travel souvenirs on top. Here, it made sense to us to put the children’s books on it with family photos on top. We have board books (that I hope to be rehoming soon) on the bottom, and that’s about the only rule. The baskets on the shelves house smaller toys, and those on the top are for the dog’s leashes and other items we want handy but hidden (the timer for the Christmas tree – I have no idea why it’s not packed).
I know what you’re thinking, for a readerly parent, you don’t have that many children’s books, even for someone who generally goes to the library weekly. Oh, but wait, there’s more! Each child has a bookshelf in his bedroom, and usually a stack of books by his bed too. They determine what titles go in their room, until their shelf is too packed and mom says it’s time to pick some things to go downstairs and perhaps some titles to rehome as well. B has always had this shelf in his room, as it was in his dad’s room growing up, but it did have some toys and baskets for a while too. S got his bookshelf when he got his twin bed and was more excited about the bookshelf than the bed! He’s kept it full ever since. Both usually need reminding that they only need five within reach of their bed.
But what about the fancy, styled bookshelves? That’s relative, but we do have some built-ins on either side of our big TV. We moved our older books more out of reach, and paired them with newer books that had a similar feel. We also displayed some of the items we adore from travel, family, and life, including old year books and photo albums (and a lone box, welcome to real life). This is the style I want for the library I dream of, with dark wood and the smell of well-loved hardbacks, probably without dust jackets. In my dreams, it doesn’t have space for this ratio of display space, but there will be some at least because we do love our eclectic mix of items included here.
How do you organize your bookshelves? What special items do you have on them?
~Nikki
The bookshelves in my house have just been placed, cleaned, and reorganized this month thanks to purchasing our home in July. Also, I bought another shelf just a week ago for a specific spot between the dining room and kitchen, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. At the beginning of the month I shared a photograph of my nekkid bookshelves in my calming, blue office and today I get to share the fully organized, final product with you!
I, like Nikki, am now an e-book reader and I have been trying to get most of my reading material from the library if at all possible. Or other free/inexpensive means via the Kindle gods. In order for me to purchase books to place on my shelf there are several criteria that I take into consideration. Firstly, I do ask myself if owning the book will bring me joy, thanks Marie Kondo, even though the KonMari method does not approve of the amount of books I keep. (Thirty books doesn’t do it for me, even a little bit, much less 30 in the entire house.) Too dang bad, looking at these books brings me immense joy and calm. I also try to adhere to the famous maxim by William Morris: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. I prefer all of my items to do double duty, to be both useful and beautiful. That might be a tall order, but I find that it helps me curb my hoarder-tendencies, even though it’s not hoarding if it’s books.
I own a lot of series and collections of books by authors and I arrange my shelves using these groupings. Can you see the sections belonging to Robert Jordan, Cassandra Clare, J.K. Rowling, Sarah J. Maas, and Diana Gabaldon? That’s about half of the books on my shelf with those authors alone! My non-fiction section is several fold and I separate by theme/genre rather than that Dewey way. I have sections for real estate & business, personal finance and wealth building, relationships and personal development, Catholicism and spirituality, health, and reference books. I even have a section of ‘children’s books’ which includes Le Petit Prince in 5 printings and 3 languages. [Nikki here, do not @ us over this. I only have two printings, in two languages. Pick something else if you want to @ us, there’s plenty.] Oh, and Go the F*^k to Sleep.
Decor rules are also important for bookshelves. I like to fill mine with people and places that I love, especially if the photos can do double duty with people AND places! I love me some Funko Pop! Figures, but I have a hard rule about them, too: only badass female characters. See how Hermione hangs out by the Harry Potter collection with Queenie from Fantastic Beasts? And, yes, that’s me and Carla at Hogwarts Castle from our trip to Universal Studios in December 2018.
You might be thinking that this one shelf doesn’t seem like enough books for 2 adults and you’d be completely correct. Let’s walk downstairs to the pantry nook and check out my new cookbook shelf – which is also doubling as some extra pantry storage at the moment. I definitely hung my artwork right before this picture was taken. There’s a stack of decorative bound books randomly in the living room, and they get replaced with Christmas themed ones during the holidays… Eureka! I need a decorative book stack for every season! I am so gonna make that happen! Stay tuned!
The point I really want to make is that Adam’s books are completely separate from mine. He has two glass-fronted shelves he has decorated to suit his office/game room that I happily painted red before we moved in. I don’t know how he keeps them organized and I honestly don’t care, just like he doesn’t care about mine either. We combined only our Game of Thrones books upon marriage and I need him to keep them on his shelf since they are all different printings and that bothers the bejesus out of me.
So there you have it, dear readers, an explanation of how we organize our bookshelves. Does your house take after Nikki’s family melting pot or Ashley’s separate but equal style? Regardless, I am sure you are not in agreement with Charles Bingley and you have looked into the reasons why you have the books on your shelf!
~Ashley
