Fantasy Aficionados discussion

For you paper-book owners (I know, a Kindle would solve all this, right?)-- I have a new bookshelf, which necessitates rearranging the collection. It has five moveable shelves, but I can't make all the shelf spaces tall enough to accommodate hardcover and softcover together. I usually group sci-fi and fantasy together, and I would LOVE to have alphabetical order (soOCD). How do you all cope with different sizes of books? Group hardcover together? Then paperback?

I can't split up a series. That just drives me nuts. So I have to figure out a way to put the series together. However if I have a series in all Hardback it's ok if they are separated from everything else.

Also by books are organized by favorites and genres, instead of alphabetical. So I have the favorites bookshelf in my room - these are the tried and true books that I know if I get into a reading slump (or am broke) I can go to and find something good to read.

Then my office/library has all the other books.

I usually put my hardcovers on the bottom shelves in size order then on the shelves on top of that tradebacks then finally the smaller paperbacks on the top ones. (I have a thing with books going in descending order, but then books of the same genre/author are grouped together)

Maybe that will help? Although I do have two separate bookshelves for all the genres that I read...fantasy/scifi have their own shelf and everything else goes on the other one.

I always organize by author then series then genre. It gets really hard when your fave authors writes more than one genre...

i have separate bookshelves (for the most part) for my paperbacks and hardcovers. I keep all of my series together and I also tried grouping all of my zombie books together. I also have a separate space for my graphic novels and my signed Joe Hill books.

Ugh! Now I'm opening older boxes and found a set of Piers' Juxtaposition Juxtaposition series, Jack Chalker's Vengence series Demons of the Dancing Gods and a Carole Nelson Douglas series Six of Swords. I hate to get rid of old books--heaven knows I'll never want to buy them again, but space is at a premium. If only someone could put them in eformat the same way cds get put into ipods.

I do what Pauline does, and try to keep all the same author's books together, and by series. If I can, I also arrange by genre. That's as close as I can come. I don't even bother to do alphabetical order.

Carol wrote: "Ugh! Now I'm opening older boxes and found a set of Piers' Juxtaposition Juxtaposition series, Jack Chalker's Vengence series Demons of the Dancing Gods and a Carole Nel..."

How techy are you? There's a company that you can send the books to that will scan them and send them back to you in .pdf format. If you have access to a OCR scanner you can convert it to .txt and Calibre can convert that to .epub.

Or you can read it in .pdf - but it's not shiftable from .pdf to .epub.

I like to maximize my space (small house syndrome) and so some of my books are standing and some are on their sides in piles. I get to put more books into one space this way, and I like the way the books look. P.S. I too cannot separate a series.=P

Small house syndrome here as well (the ONLY place I have left I could put another bookcase is in the middle of the living room floor!). I do re-read the books I keep (have a separate bookcase for the current library books) and a combination of deep and narrow shelves. The narrow shelves are where I keep the paperbacks (standing) that do not have some hardbacks by the same author. Where I have a series with both hardback and paperback copies, those go on the wider shelves with the hardbacks to the back and the paperbacks laying on their sides, spine forward, in front of the hardbacks. I do keep them pretty much by author, not so much by genre.

I separate Hardcover and MMPB, then genres, then alphabetical order (sigh) It's frustrating!
Well, except for ... SFF. I have few hardcover books, so it would be awkward to keep them apart. As a result, like on Trace's shelf, some are standing, others are not, because I can't "waste" space. You can have a look on the perpetual reorganization :
http://photo.goodreads.com/photos/129...

Hélène, your shelves are beautiful! Aren't we lucky to have something as frustrating as organizing our books...lol...I just love them!

I absolutely despise hardcovers. I only have a few, but as I too cannot break up series, they are laid on their sides when they don't fit.

It IS fun, isn't it? I'll have to post a pic soon. Thanks for your pic, Helene! (sorry, I don't know how to make the accent marks).

I decided a while ago to go for hardcovers for my favorites (so I'm in the process of replacing for favorites like Beagle and Kay), and sometimes hardcovers are quite cheap at B&N--I think some of my Lackey hardcovers are through sales. But they make organizing a little more challenging.

I do mine by author, with some specialized books shelved separately. I would never break up an author, just because one books happens to be a mmPB. Besides the variation in size and color have a chaotic artistic effect I find soothing.

My main problem has been oversized books. My solution is to put a dummy book in place and redirect to oversized shelves and to make a notation in my database.

Carol wrote: "It IS fun, isn't it? I'll have to post a pic soon. Thanks for your pic, Helene! (sorry, I don't know how to make the accent marks).

I decided a while ago to go for hardcovers for my favorites (so ..."

I do this, too. I get a lot of my hardcovers that way. I also have a vast ebook collection, too.

I do tend to put hardback together, starting from the left, and then paperbacks by size. I don't generally have a problem breaking up series because I don't like hardbacks and don't have many, and if I start a series in paperback then I refuse to get hardbacks for it. (The only exception to this was HP in which I started getting the hardbacks at book 5 'cause I couldn't wait... but I have since gotten paperbacks of them to match, and the hardbacks are on the shelf above.)

I also don't sort alphabetically. I sort by author/series and genre.

I have this weird grouping of all my zombie books that then off shoots into a collection by the same publisher because all the books look really cool together and they are all short story collections (2 are zombie collections,they act as my bridge)

I just came across this and thought it was pretty cool. I couldn't ever mix my books like this, but it is a neat idea.

I agree with you, Amanda. This is a really attractive grouping. But I think it would drive me mental if doing this meant separating a series or specific authors works...lol

Yes, and not only separating the authors and series, but mixing the genres. *shudders*
I wouldn't be able to do it. I can't have my fantasy anywhere near my classics or regular fiction. lol

Amanda wrote: "Yes, and not only separating the authors and series, but mixing the genres. *shudders*
I wouldn't be able to do it. I can't have my fantasy anywhere near my classics or regular fiction. lol"

Hmm rainbow patterns separated by genre n author? Just more rainbows that way I think

Sort of like Inception: a rainbow within a rainbow within a rainbow ;)

That's beautiful...and would drive me out of my ever loving mind, lol!

lol!
On the upside, insanity is a good excuse to get out of work, home life, etc. with more time to read.

hmmmm....rainbow bookshelves.....

I have to do hardbacks and paperback separate. The difference in size would drive me nuts. We have one case dedicated to only hardbacks and the top two shelves of two others for hardbacks and trade paperback size. It's sorted by series/author and I try to keep genre together. I also give books/series I like the best preferential treatment and they get shelved more towards eye level or on the outside row (we have a few shelves stacked with 3 or 4 rows).

Here's a pic if you want a view... I've had to reorganize a couple times since I took this though as books were added.
http://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/5...

OMG, Amanda, I can't believe you found a picture of color coordinated shelves--our Barnes and Noble superstore does that in the discount section with hardcovers and it drives me MENTAL. Insane. I almost (but not quite) can't even look at the books.

I think your Barnes and Noble would leave me pulling my hair out. It's pretty to look at, but I can't imagine actually organizing your books like that. Especially in a book store!

I reorganize my bookshelves a few times a week because the books aren't quite the same height. What can I say, I have ocd and a lot of time on my hands. :)

I love Hélène's bookshelves! I'm going to try stacking my paperbacks on their sides next to the hardcovers now. Maybe that way they will be alphabetical but still the same height...

Dana, love your shelves.

Amanda-pretty, but I think it would be too complicated. Although, I took an Organization of Information class this semester where we did discuss libraries organizing their shelves by color. I'm not sure we found any real world examples of it being done.

Rachel--if you are still taking the class, I can try and stop by and take a picture. Last time I was there, I actually complained about it. It's only the discount hardcovers, but still, it's crazy annoying.

I finished the class last week, but thanks for the offer.

There are a couple of things which are driving me mad at the moment;

I've been collecting a couple of major fantasy series' only to find that publishers have switched the cover design substantially a couple of books from the end. I've actually begun to wait until a series has been finished just so i can purchase matching covers and spines for my shelves.

In the UK we also seem to have moved from normal sized paperbacks to the slightly larger Mass Market Paperback which means that my series of crime and thriller books where many books have been published with the same author for a character over some years do not match in size even when the cover design has remained the same. It seems that the original paperback size is going out of fashion.

Or do i just need therapy?

That bothers me too, Tyrone. I hate those long mass market paperbacks. Annoying.

Tyrone wrote: "There are a couple of things which are driving me mad at the moment;

I've been collecting a couple of major fantasy series' only to find that publishers have switched the cover design substantia..."

NO I totally get what you're saying. I started buying the Kushiel's Dart series in MMPB - then they switched to a huge HB - but the new HB for the older books are shorter and narrower than the other HBs.

Dresden has also changed to the new MMPB sizes, and it bugs me that's it thrown my shelf outta whack.

The Dark Tower series is like that too. First 3 or 4 books you can get to match but then the publisher changed, so the last 3 throw the series outta whack.

Why do they DO this?? Don't they realize that some of us are collectors??

*le sigh*

± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± wrote: "Dresden has also changed to the new MMPB sizes, and it bugs me that's it thrown my shelf outta whack."

My last 2 Dresdin books are this size! I've had to make sure that I shelve them so the larger ones are on the end...makes it a little less noticeable. It's highly annoying.

Rachel wrote: "The Dark Tower series is like that too. First 3 or 4 books you can get to match but then the publisher changed, so the last 3 throw the series outta whack."

Yeah...i got caught with that series as well. :-(

It's sadly true for me as well. The last two had to be turned on their sides.

So this is kinda-sorta on/off topic. But I just saw this pretty awesome youtube stopmotion that dealt with organizing books.

click me!

Though it is infinitely cool, I don't think I would ever be able to do books by color.

That was fun. What an amazing amount of work!