Reorganizing My Bookshelves & My Book Collection

My book collection is split between two places— a small, cultivated collection of favorites in my apartment, and a larger collection of books in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house. Over the years, as I’ve accumulated books from publishers, gifts, and my own book purchasing, my larger shelf has become a mess. I often like to lend friends and family books, but when my shelves are messy, it can be hard to find exactly what I’m looking for. As I was home for a short break, I decided to organize it systematically to make my shelves easier to navigate. Here’s a glimpse into that process, as well as a tour of my book collection.

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Traditionally, people like to organize their bookshelves by author name, color, genre, or a combination of traits. Personally, I prefer organizing books into categories that don’t quite follow genre, but make sense to me. As you’ll see below, I organize books into categories based on how much I like them, their size, or their form. Here is what that looks like:

TOP SHELF: ANTHOLOGIES

On my top shelf, I stacked my largest anthologies that would be difficult to fit amongst the rest of my collection.

SHELF 2: POETRY COLLECTIONS + MY FAVORITE BOOKS

My poetry books are stacked on the left side of this shelf. The rest of the shelf is filled with my favorite books vertically— since lining books up vertically can take up a lot of space, this is one of the only parts of my collection stacked this way. There’s no order to how the books are lined up, but these are all some of my most highly rated and treasured reads. The rest of my favorite books (like my Baldwin collection, and favorite Russian lit) and poetry collections are on my apartment shelves! 

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SHELF 3: NONFICTION, GRAPHIC NOVELS, AND FICTION

I don’t tend to buy nonfiction books (I’ll often get them from the library or listen on audiobook), but I do treasure the books I have hard copies of. I’ve read some of these for school, for my personal education, and for my enjoyment. One of my favorites in this stack is Daisy Hernandez’s A Cup of Water Under My Bed. 

To the right of the nonfiction books are five graphic novels. They are each different from one another, but are all fantastic! The rest of this shelf is filled with paperback fiction books I’ve read and enjoyed.

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SHELF 4: CLASSICS, FICTION, SHORT FICTION + PLAYS

On the left, I have some classics that I’ve read for school or picked up on my own. A few of these books remain unread (like Les Mis, which I hope to get to someday!).

In the middle, I have a horizontal stack of fiction novels that I feel neutral about. These were all fairly good— good enough for me to keep and recommend now and again— but I don’t feel too strongly about many of them. However, the two vertical fiction books (The Master and Margarita, The Luminaries) are some of my favorites that I couldn’t fit elsewhere.

On the right, I have short stories, essays, and plays. I would highly recommend Lot by Bryan Washington, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

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SHELF 5: HARDCOVER BOOKS, MY TBR, & MISC. 

Hardcover books can be so difficult to fit into a bookshelf! I try not to buy hardbacks very often— they are expensive and bulkier to carry around— but I was subscribed to Book of the Month for a while and accumulated a small collection. In these stacks, I most enjoyed “Disappearing Earth” by Julia Phillips and “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga.

Finally, I have my only double-layered stack of books— miscellaneous books (books from my childhood, literary magazines) and my TBR.

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Thanks for reading! 🙂 Let me know your thoughts & how you organize your bookshelves!