This video is marvelous! I particularly like the credits.
There is something very telling about how a person arranges their books. In perfect alphabetical order? Genre? Size? So, this is a little embarrassing for a librarian to admit—I have my bookshelves arranged by color. It is only the fiction, which I think makes it okay…
For me it was a question of aesthetics—I have a crazy love for patterns, so I needed to calm the joint down a bit with neat sections of color. What you can’t see in this photo is the massive bird rug in the center of the room—makes the color-coded bookshelves look subtle in comparison. This arrangement has its drawbacks, obviously—I went a little crazy the other day trying to find a book I was sure had a white cover, but was actually gray…
How are your bookshelves arranged? Does it say anything about your personality? Comment below.
–Lori
Mine are by genre or subject. But sometimes the subjects are invented by me like “books whose prose makes me inexplicably gleeful”. – Jess
Fascinating. Unfortunately I don’t get to see a lot of other people’s bookshelves. Mine are by subject then by author, with fiction, psychology, and other books related to my writing all sitting nearer to my desk.
I totally arrange my books by color, too. And like you, it’s only the fiction that’s done that way. I figure this is as good a way as any. I mean, I have so many books at this point, and I add new ones so often that there’s no way alphabetical is really going to work — too hard to maintain when you have to shift shelves and shelves of books to fit in that new one with an author who has a last name that begins with A! I pretty much never have trouble finding anything — I can usually see the book I’m looking for in my head and go directly to the right color section for it