Different Ways to Organize Books

 

Organizing books can be exciting especially if you are an avid reader like me.  One thing that always seems to be frustrating however is deciding how to organize them. Today I'll go over some of the different ways to organize and display your library of books. Alphabetical by Author

This is a very traditional way to organize books and they do it this way at libraries and book stores by the author's last name.  If you are familiar with the authors of the books you own, this is a great way to do it.   

 

Alphabetical by Title

Some people like to be a little different and choose to organize books alphabetically by title.  You don't separate by author or genre at all.  This is a great way to organize books if you are one of those people that knows the name of a book you love. I'm not that type of person.  You actually have to explain a plot to me to refresh my memory and then I can usually think of the title. 

 

By Genre

This is also how libraries and bookstores organize books before they do it alphabetically.  When you organize books this way you can keep them in rows or stacks by genre.  If you read a wide variety of genres this is a great way to keep everything orderly and be able to find what you want to read very quickly.  You can sort the genres alphabetically or however you wish.  

 

By Color

This is the way I do it because I love rainbows.  You will choose the color order, most people opting to use the ROYGBIV order, but will also have to decide where you want white, black, grey, and pink. For mine, I do white, pink, ROYGBIV, grey, then black. For book spines that have multiple colors on them, look at the color you see first and then put it in that color section.  Within the colors I do light to dark. 

 

By Series

If you are someone that loves series you may find that your library is mostly made up of book series with only a few standalone books. For you, it may be best to organize by series and group the series together and then your standalone books can just go in whatever area of the shelves you choose. Some people also choose one of the methods above for their regular books and then stack the series books veritcally in between the regular books.  

 

TBRs

What about your to be read books? Some people choose a basket, some people have a specific shelf for those books, and some people just keep them mixed in with the other books but have them written down somewhere so they know what they still need to read.  I also see people stack TBRs vertically amongst the horizontal books. 

 

Different Rooms

I actually do something else with my books - I keep books of a certain topic in certain areas. Sometimes people have kitchen books or books by chefs that they use in a decorative stack in their kitchen or dining room. I have home decor type books that I use as book stack decor on my shelves in my living room. My fiction books are in the book nook library in my home office and my true crime books are on a shelf in a different part of the home office.  

 

So how do you organize YOUR books?  

  

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