Reorganizing your books can be an incredibly satisfying task. Pick a weekend when you know you don’t have a lot going on, maybe one when the weather is bad, and you’d much rather spend the afternoon indoors than venturing out into the world. It’s the perfect time to reorganize all those books that have been accumulating over the past few months as you acquire new ones, pull them out to read, and generally leave your shelves in disarray.
Before you start your ambitious book organizing project, consider doing something different for a change. These are 10 eccentric ways to reorganize your bookshelf.
#1 Divide Light and Dark
Good guys vs. bad guys, heroes vs. villains, all dramatized on your shelves. Split your shelves down the middle with dark on one side and light on the other. Alternatively, if you can use full color on one side vs. white covers on other. If you happen to read a lot of French books, which almost all use the same white or cream-colored cover, this light vs. dark can be very dramatic.
#2 Organize by Spine Color
You can’t go wrong with this visually stunning method for organizing bookshelves. Organizing your books by spine color creates a big impact when someone walks into the room. You may have to make some compromises when it comes to rarer book cover colors like pink or yellow, but if you have an extensive collection you should have no problem at all.
#3 Alphabetically
For those who are committed to logic and order, organizing your shelves alphabetically is the way to go. Forget the flash and fuss of color organizing.
#4 Height
If you’re the kind of person who gets mad about odd-sized books that are too tall, organize your books by height. You can achieve a calming balance on your shelves by arranging books by size in ascending or descending order.
#5 Genre
Genre is a simple organizing tool.Separate the literary fiction from the fantasy/sci-fi, thrillers from poetry, and drama from horror. This is a great pick for those with wide ranging tastes.
#6 Spread Out Your Books
Is your bookshelf a haphazard heap of doubled up rows and books on top of each other? It’s time to get a new bookshelf and spread your collection through multiple rooms. You can also use a wall of bookshelves to help muffle noise.
#7 Publisher
Whether you follow the big publishing houses or indie presses, sorting books by publisher is a unique way to organize your shelves and display your loyalties.
#8 Edition
If you have a lot of classics on your shelves or a lot of books from publishers like Penguin or NYRB, you can easily sort your books so their editions match. Every few years, these publishers change the easily recognizable style of their books.
#9 Geographically
You have a lot more room for interpretation than you might think with geography. Do you sort books by where they were written, where the author is from, where the author lives, or where the book takes place? You’re going to have a lot of fun organizing shelves this way.
#10 Publishing Date
See history unfold on your bookshelves by organizing your books according to publication date. Things can get interesting depending on how far back your interests go, but when it comes to new releases, you can just shelve them into place in order.
If no one can find a book on your shelf but you, who cares? There’s something rewarding about a secret organizational scheme. Have fun reorganizing your books!
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