chris martenscontroversial question time
how do you organize books on your home bookshelf?
mcc@chrisamaphone vibes
This sounds like a non-response but is real. I have identified five to seven unique vibes the books on my bookshelf comprise and sort them in that order, with vibe-straddling books in between vibe sections as transitions
@chrisamaphone I should also note that *what goes on the bookshelf* follows a particular scheme… I do virtually all my reading on ebooks, so the bookshelf is specifically for things which serve some "visual" purpose, e.g., they are artbooks, comics, or (I am not ashamed of this) books I am proud to own and want people to see I own on my bookshelf. And also some reference volumes. If it isn't very specifically in one of those categories they go in my storage unit. I don't have that much space.
@mcc yeah, the prevalence of ebooks has really clarified for me why i own physical books: their physical form has to matter for some reason, like enjoying the way it looks or feels or the colors in print. and *absolutely* they are conversation starters for guests or video calls, or just emblems of who i am and what’s important to me. they’re part of personal style imo
Lea@mcc @chrisamaphone Vibes-based for me, too, and I also don’t actually have very many books (either physical or ebook, since most of the ebook reading I do is library loans). I used to be embarrassed about that because “having lots of books” has been such an in-group marker of the cultural group I am mostly in, but I think this has changed a lot with the existence of ebooks and the predominance of renting (and thus moving often) in my social circles.
@mcc @chrisamaphone
I own physical books iff they are 1) rare/obscure, souvenirs, or otherwise sentimental; 2) “reference,” meaning that I am likely to return to them on short notice and/or are primarily “flip through this for inspiration”; 3) something I would lend to friends (and for this last category it has to be already beaten up / inexpensive or else I would not be willing to lend it).
I own physical books iff they are 1) rare/obscure, souvenirs, or otherwise sentimental; 2) “reference,” meaning that I am likely to return to them on short notice and/or are primarily “flip through this for inspiration”; 3) something I would lend to friends (and for this last category it has to be already beaten up / inexpensive or else I would not be willing to lend it).
Kat@mcc @chrisamaphone this answer is extremely close to how i do it but explained better
Nicole 🏳️⚧️ 🌈@chrisamaphone
rough categories:
- math textbooks adjacent
- comp sci textbooks adjacent
- my grandpa's stem books get a whole skinny bookcase
- philosophy/religion together
- leadership/management/etc. together
- tech together
within each category it's just whatever order, usually random and then the order of acquisition as I add onto the end
textbooks at the bottom of the cases for stability, and otherwise I do think a bit about what I want visible in video chats
@chrisamaphone that's just my office bookcases. the ones in the rest of the house are:
- cooking related (a couple in my office, handy references in the kitchen, the rest in the dining room)
- english fiction (first floor living room)
- russian fiction and my wife's books (our bedroom)
- some other religion books (living room)
and then fiction gets broken down a bit by vibe/genre
it's surprisingly easy for me, but only me, to find any book I own
@nicole i have a friend who once showed me his “religion” bookshelf. it contained the bible, tao te ching, quran, and Types and Programming Languages
@chrisamaphone ahh haha that's amazing. now I wonder what I should mix into the religion shelf.
also realizing that my religion shelf in my office only has comparative religion texts, no sources. our only primary text (faith & practice from PYM) is in our living room. maybe I've gotta fix this.
Philippa Cowderoy@chrisamaphone ...bookshelf?
(I don't have enough physical books to warrant it, ebooks everywhere though)
@flippac a valid answer
@chrisamaphone I'd take a different approach if I were in possession of books that felt more important as physical artifacts - that's the kind of thing I've actively avoided for physical space reasons, though.
Mx. Aria Stewart@chrisamaphone Roughly by genre, grouping authors, no other order. "Comics" "Community maintenance" "Short science fiction" "Scifi novels" "Love and relationships" "Urbanism" "languages" "cookbooks"
Zugai@chrisamaphone first level: Topic/Genre
second level: aesthetics, e.g. making sure I can fit all volumes of a manga on one shelf or so that the cooking books which have all kinds of formats work well together.
Third level: Manga I sort from right to left with ascending numbers XD
second level: aesthetics, e.g. making sure I can fit all volumes of a manga on one shelf or so that the cooking books which have all kinds of formats work well together.
Third level: Manga I sort from right to left with ascending numbers XD
Raeyn@chrisamaphone Loosely, by author and by series. I have less space than I have books, so sometimes it's everything by an author wedged in together in a desperate attempt to get all the books on the shelf.
Sam@chrisamaphone fit and vibe
azul@chrisamaphone haha, i don't.
everything is a mess, i do not have enough shelves.
in fact i have a stack of books on my desk and i have no idea how to put them away.
wait no, i have two stacks of books on my desk.
Analog AI@chrisamaphone Me: put books on shelf, usually. My partner: group by subject, within subject alphabetically by author.
Amanda@chrisamaphone Loosely, in sections based on topic, how often I need to get to those books, and space available. Within sections, by size and visual appeal.
However…we have embarked on a remodeling project, so the books are mostly all packed into a few shelves, two and three rows deep, and the biggest bookcase won’t make it through the remodel, so I guess I get to have a think about how I want it to be in the future.
However…we have embarked on a remodeling project, so the books are mostly all packed into a few shelves, two and three rows deep, and the biggest bookcase won’t make it through the remodel, so I guess I get to have a think about how I want it to be in the future.
Akiva Leffert@chrisamaphone alphabetically. Fiction and non fiction separated out. Like god intended
Prabhakar Ragde@chrisamaphone Roughly by category (e.g. all cookbooks together), but size is a factor. All works by one author together where feasible. No other organization, really.
pfriedma@chrisamaphone
I have a long term fantasy of going through the bookshelf and organizing it by LoC taxonomy, but ATM it's vibe-grouped like a number of folks - "cooking and homemaking", "math and science", "general reference", "nonfiction history" , "fiction", "nostalgia" (yearbooks, photo albums, reprints of old catalogs, &c)
I have a long term fantasy of going through the bookshelf and organizing it by LoC taxonomy, but ATM it's vibe-grouped like a number of folks - "cooking and homemaking", "math and science", "general reference", "nonfiction history" , "fiction", "nostalgia" (yearbooks, photo albums, reprints of old catalogs, &c)
Lindsey Kuper@chrisamaphone there's an attempt at organizing by topic, but not much discipline about it
Damon L. Wakes@chrisamaphone Now I want to ask this same question about tools.
@lea if you do i’ll boost
Maayan Roth@chrisamaphone by size, so that I can stack them laying on their sides and maximally fun the available space
Dr Keith Wilson 💭@chrisamaphone Large to small, sometimes by colour. 😊
C.B. Aberlé@chrisamaphone In theory: by subject, then alphabetical by author (aka library style)
In practice: anything goes / wherever I happen to put things back after taking them out.
Amélia Liao 
@chrisamaphone i just looked over and realised that some of my manga series aren't even in the right order also the boxes of three different usb cables are on top of some books so i'm gonna go with "no"
llewelly@chrisamaphone
all my books are in boxes bc I'm too poor to own bookshelves.
all my books are in boxes bc I'm too poor to own bookshelves.
andrew blinn@chrisamaphone i imagine stacking the books in a high dimensional space where i can have orthogonal axes for subject, quality, color, size, texture, etc, and then try to project down to 1d, quasi-crystal style, with local fold decisions based maintaing a rhythm along at one or two dimensions.
so, vibe, i guess
@chrisamaphone basically i am trying to use ploy described at the end of 'library of babel' where meaning is encoded in distribution
JJ 
@disconcision @chrisamaphone i like the bookshelves 👀
stolee@chrisamaphone first separate fiction and nonfiction.
Fiction is sorted by author and then publication order.
Nonfiction by topic, and rarely any order makes sense within a topic.
@stolee publication order!
@stolee i guess for within an author that makes sense. at first i was imagining publication order being a more significant lexeme, which would be a bold move
@stolee (and by “more significant lexeme” i mean like, an index key further up the organizational hierarchy)
@chrisamaphone I guess I should specify that I’ll use publication order within a series if an author writes multiple series interleaved (I don’t sepearare mistborn, skyward, or stormlight books in my Sanderson section). But generally oldest to newest.
Andrew Plotkin@chrisamaphone Size.
Beyond that, I keep books by an author together. To some extent I group authors that are associated in my mind, but this is sporadic.
Rob Ricci@chrisamaphone let my spouse do it.
(We have, boy, I dunno, thousands maybe?)
mym@chrisamaphone currently they are mostly in boxes because we haven't found a satisfactory bookshelf solution for the place we've been in *checks notes* three years
drhoopoe@chrisamaphone Organize? Lol. I think the closest I get is the distinction between the ones on the shelves (rarely looked at except by houseguests), the stacks on the floor by my desk (probably connected to something I'm writing, have written in the past year or so, or need to write soon), the stacks on the dining-room table (probably related to something I'm teaching or have taught in the past year or so), or the ones stacked on my bedside table (novels I'm reading).
@chrisamaphone And yes, I'm divorced. How did you guess?
@chrisamaphone split by genres; within genres vibes + aesthetics (books of similar height together)
@chrisamaphone they are very precisely organized in a way difficult to explain. by general time periods (of my life) and vibes? also to some extent influenced by factors such as size, keeping series together, etc.
Pierce Darragh@chrisamaphone wife and I mostly each curate specific genres on distinct shelves. mine (mostly fantasy and sci-fi) are grouped kinda by collection, then by author, then aesthetic and size.
@chrisamaphone because they look nice together I have a whole Dune shelf, which also includes the art companion book for Blade Runner 2049 (I don't have the Dune ones yet). but this is funny because I've only read the first two in the series...
@chrisamaphone I also have two Tolkien shelves*, despite not having read all of the material. but I love them and will not be changing them except to add anything else I come across that fits.
*I believe Tolkien is a genre unto himself, genuinely.
ix@chrisamaphone mine are deliberately disorganized
RanaldClouston@chrisamaphone fiction nicely organised by century, then author name (authors that span centuries in later one). Non fiction a completely random helldump.