Books

[jack]

I've been cataloguing my books. I'm about half way through, and have shelved:

~100 very good books, on bookcase #1.
~150 good books, temporarily boxed while waiting for a final count.
~75 books I don't really care about, but found interesting enough to keep.
~25 books I haven't read.
3 books I don't want at all. (1 Jenny Colgan, blame Jane, 1 random horror, 1 random thriller.)
4 books I don't own. (Same Jenny Colgan, 1 Umberto Eco long-term loaned from Grandfather, Tristan Shandy from Katherine, Mathematics of Financial Derivatives from Justin.)
10 not fiction and poetry, not including textbooks which are packed with notes.

Doubling gives about 700 total, about 500 which it would be nice to display. I have just about that much space if I set up the new bookcase and empty the oldest one.

I've been sorting books into very good and good, in my opinion, and within that shelved by author. I've kept some authors together, when I've generally liked or not been too bothered about them, but split up some's books when some I've really liked and some I really haven't.

Fortunately, I've no co-authored books where I can't decide where to put it. I've never liked an Pournelle or Barnes, so all those go under Niven. Good Omens goes under Pratchett because I've only got Neverwhere of Gaimen's.

I'm slightly scared there's so many, though nothing to how many some friends have. And pleased by how few I don't want.

I should have done more cleaning instead, but I'm pleased I did this. Maybe next I'll sort through the drawers of useless tat and get everything labeled up! :)

How does everyone else sort?

Comments

[aldabra]

Sort? They're in the order they came out of the boxes...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ahead of where I was then :)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

How does everyone else sort?

We currently have 4 double bookcases.

Bookcase 1 contains around 200 language and linguistics books associated with my work and study since I came to Cambridge. These are organised into language-specific subsections (within each of which language texts like grammars and dictionaries are separated from literary works in the relevant languages) and a substantial general linguistics section, organised alphabetically.

Bookcase 2 contains over 200 SF books, combining my and G's collections. They are sorted alphabetically, and within the more prolific authors' sections, by date of publication.

Bookcase 3 contains about 100 non-SF fiction books (from my and G's collections) and non-fiction works such as popular science and programming manuals. (It also contains lots of old files.) These are sorted by subject, and then alphabetically.

Bookcase 4 contains part of my ever-growing collection of OU course textbooks, which also occupies much of the space in the bedroom not already occupied by bookcases 1-3. These are sorted by course.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

I have one bookcase that's almost all classics books, one bookcase where I put stuff on loan from the library (well, just a shelf really - the rest has videos and miscellanea), one bookcase with lots of random books, some of which are good but others of which smell, and there's one bookcase with my parents books on. Few of my books are shiny, which makes me sad :(

[naath.livejournal.com]

Some of my books are in unsorted piles :)

I sort books into 'non-fiction', 'fiction-sf&f' and 'fiction-other'. I sort 'non-fiction' by topic and then alphabetically by author. I sort both sorts of fiction (seperately) by size (large or small) and the alphabetically by author. Most 'small' are double stacked on the book case.

Incidentally, breaking my own rules, my hardback (large) Prattchet is followed by Good Omens (small, oops) which is then followed by my (large) Gaiman books (Graphic Novels and hardbacks, I have no Gaiman paperbacks) allthough the paperback (small) Prattchet is sorted elsewhere because that shelf is Too Small. Largely it is organised this way because the only other sf&f 'large' books I own and keep in Essex are RJ and Years of Rice And Salt which fit on the end of that shelf nicely.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

And of course, you have *other* books, like CTS library :) Though not as staggeringly so as Relativity :)

Incidentally, breaking my own rules

I suppose in addition to the rules I mention, I also sort by size, and various sorts of books, genre and age I read it, and where it used to live on previous bookcases, and occasionally let some rules override the normal ones :)

Fortunately I have few enough that I don't have many awkward cases, if I were a library or a mark, I'd have to have a definite system for books of several authors, or books I really want next to other books, but aren't there alphabetically.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

I have:
books I'm currently reading
borrowed books waiting for return
musicology
'puter
poetry
the rest

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I *try* to keep books I'm currently reading to one on the sideboard, excluding non-fiction. I'm nearing the point where a shelf might be useful, but in fact, once I stop, it tends to get lost in the "books to read" :( :)

[bouteillebleu.livejournal.com]

I have one bookcase of fiction, one of manga/DVDs/computer books/anything that needs a large shelf, and one for all the rest of my non-fiction. Also, a large box under the bed full of linguistics books I should try to sell at some point.

I like the idea of sorting fiction by whether you like it or not. Mine's sorted alphabetically and double-shelved, so I have a whole lot of Robin Hobb and Guy Gavriel Kay I'm probably never going to read just staring at me. And (oh, the shame), a whole half-shelf of Eddings hidden behind the rest of A-E. Which I've read before, and probably never will again.

The manga/DVD/computer/large book bookcase is vaguely sorted by series or genre. The other one is yet more vaguely sorted by subject and whether the book fits in the available space...

I'd get more bookcases, as these ones are all bowing under the weight, but there's no space - attic room, thus low ceilings. :)

I like the idea of sorting fiction by whether you like it or not.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Duh :)

Anything you're not actually likely to want needn't really be out, or at least *behind* on the double shelving! But inertia defeats any such efforts.

I'd get more bookcases, as these ones are all bowing under the weight, but there's no space - attic room, thus low ceilings. :)

Yeah :( My last house was great -- there were three bedrooms plus an attic than was way too low to fit a person in, but had mucho volume for storage!

[sonicdrift.livejournal.com]

I have several big boxes in my parents spare room. Some have been in boxes since 1999, some only since I last took a load home as I ran out of space here. When I packed originally most of them were in a vague order but after many years of routing though to find the one book that I've desperately wanting to read there's little left. Since dragging them down from the attic (as I moaned it was too damp and they were going yellow and no amount of silica was helping :) ) I have a "normal" pile of books that shouldn't scare guests and that I don't mind if the spines are bent on *gasp*. The rest are stacked as solidly as possible so I can stack the boxes on top of each other the a wardrobe without bending any and hidden behind coats so it doesn't look like I keep my books in a wardrobe.

Of course, as soon as I actually glive somewhere permanent "Solid Bookcases" are very near the top of my shopping list :) I like the idea of sorting according to how recently I read it, so I can see if there's anything good I haven't read in a while, but am far too obsessive to break up sets!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Eek, disintegrating books! OK, that is not a nice thing to happen to them.

hidden behind coats so it doesn't look like I keep my books in a wardrobe.

ROFL. OTOH, does anyone see in your wardrobe who doesn't know you that well anyway?

Do you find yourself able to remember if books you want are in a box or in a box at parents or out?

BTW, thanks for the loan! :) I haven't ransacked them yet, but am about to.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

PS. Do you know how many you actually have, scattered around cambridge? :)

[gjm11.livejournal.com]

Fiction is alphabetical by author. Some other topics where we have a lot of books (science, mathematics, computing, philosophy) are grouped by topic and then alphabetical by author. (Conference proceedings etc. are alphabetical by editor but separated from monauthorial books.) Other things are grouped coarsely by topic ("theology", "music", "vaguely literary stuff that doesn't fit into any other category", "reference", etc.) and randomly scrambled intratopically. Pseudonyms are respected: Carroll, not Dodgson. Co-authored books are sorted by dominant author when there is one, and by alphabetically first author otherwise. Total book-count is circa 2500. The phrase "enough bookshelves" has no meaning.

I tried sorting CDs chromatically once; it worked quite well except that it drove my wife nuts. I think I tried the same with mathematics books once. I'm neither brave enough nor stupid enough to do it to all our books collectively.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I love the chromatic idea :)