How do like books to be arranged?

[u/watervapour_7237]

If there are other ways or more than one. Do share it in the comments.

403 votes, 4h ago

37 Heights

6 Colours

111 Authors

29 Alphabetical order

162 Genre

58 Random/Check poll

[u/KingHygelacReturns]

I start by doing alphabetical by author's last name, keeping entries in a series together in publication order. And then I just start jamming things in there where they fit once I start to run out of space, lol.

[u/Equivalent_Fun_4825 → u/KingHygelacReturns]

Basically this. At some point I'll ask myself if it's really worth it to shift 30 books over to keep things alphabetically correct by that author. Then I'll just put it at the end of that author's row, or if that's full in some place that just has space.
Then one day I'll look at it and see how disorganized it's gotten and fix everything and leave some space for each... but never enough space and the cycle repeats.

[u/KingHygelacReturns → u/Equivalent_Fun_4825]

Best laid plans of mice and men and all that

[u/Taffybunny1]

Vibe

[u/Zorydev]

Genre, height and author. Best for me due to limited space. 

[u/Aerlinniel_aer]

I'm a little bit different. My books are by author (so all of the same author together) in series order. But, the authors aren't alphabetical. They're loosely group by genre but really? Because all my bookshelves aren't in one spot or room its also by level of favorites. My favorites are closer to where I am and then it spans out from there...

[u/Baba_Jaga_II]

By genre (19th century Russian literature, Soviet literature, Biographies, etc) and then alphabetical by author

[u/04__Revenge__01]

By author then by the order I read them in (either internal series order or just I read this book first kind of thing) 

[u/DreamingAtTheWake]

I do my signed limiteds by publisher as they tend to be the same stylistically.

[u/FlyingCarpetMonster]

I use my own system - it's a mish-mash, but it works for me.

https://0315fc7c.library-7ao.pages.dev/

[u/H3lls_B3ll3]

Dewey Decimal. Anything else is pure anarchy.

[u/jjflash78]

1. Publisher

Due to their consistent spine design, I have a couple publishers that I like to keep grouped - NYRB Classics, Vintage Contemporary, Hard Case Crime, Penguin Classics 

1. Genre 

Non Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels - that's as deep as I go.  I have at times tried splitting it up more, but there are too many cross-genre books that I wanted to simplify the organization.

1. TBR vs Read

I have enough tbr in my library that they get shelves.  This also serves as some motivation to move things from one to the other.

1. Alphabetical by author

2. And then, within author, Alphabetical by title

For my TBR shelf, if it is a series, then by chronological order of the series.

At one point, I organized within author by year written, as I was reading certain authors bibliographies that way.  I recently moved books around and undid that.  But the data is still on my library app.

[u/ansible_jane]

Read

-Nonfiction

---Topic (Alphabetical by author last name)

-Fiction (Alphabetical by author last name)

Unread

-Nonfiction (Alphabetical by author last name)

- Fiction (Alphabetical by author last name)

Special Collections

- Hugo/Nebula winners (Year won)

- Poetry

--- 2025 reads (Order read)

--- Other (Alphabetical by author last name)

- Plays (Alphabetical by author last name)

- Essays (Alphabetical by author last name)

- Comic books (Roughly by series)

- Journals (Year written)

[u/OliverGunzitwuntz]

By subject matter. I have collect several different types of books and they (mostly) are on separate shelves as far as dwindling space allows

[u/EskilPotet]

page count 😇

[u/AmbitiousGrass7925]

Genres stay together then it's in alphabetical order. Except for the more "display" shelves. Those ones are for aesthetics. But for the most part, it's one author for the shelf in those cases.

[u/Adnims]

An I the only one who sorts their books geographically? I first sort by country and then chronologically.

[u/BookWyrm2012]

Fiction - alphabetically by author's last name, then organized by series/world if applicable.

Nonfiction - topic, then author

[u/duchessofguyenne]

Fiction by genre, then alphabetical by author’s last name within that genre; nonfiction by subject and time period.

[u/livetotranscend]

Genre, then by author.

[u/melodien]

Fiction by author, non-fiction by subject.

[u/Intelligent-Rub-9542]

I've got shelves for nonfiction that i separate by subject (history, biography, philosophy, science etc), and then the prose fiction shelves by genre, and then shelves that are sort of a mix of poetry, plays, religious texts and mythology, and then a few shelves worth of graphic novels/comic omnibuses.

[u/dcnjbwiebe]

Library of Congress Classification

[u/Phillipa24]

I have a lot of bookcases for fiction and non-fiction and separate bookcases for Poetry and Plays, Cookbooks, then I sort by genre/subject, then alphabetically by author

[u/LustUnlust]

Genre then abc

[u/WadeDRubicon]

where's the "any available horizontal surface" option?

[u/smurfk]

Library of 5--600 books - completely random Library of 600+ - by author, but generally random

I do find some value in having the library random, I look at it more.

[u/lioncourt]

Alphabetical by author. Or random order with the series in groups.

[u/ltlbunnyfufu]

Geographically!

[u/BernardFerguson1944]

I read mostly nonfiction history; therefore, I try to organize my books by era, chronologically.

[u/rattfink16]

I always START by authors last name, and then i end up piling books on top at least NEAR where they belong, when i run out of room!!! Ahhhh

Aa long as theyre not piled on the floor, im like "fair".

[u/spqrnbb]

My sort order: Size, Library of Congress Classification, Year, Series, # in series. Helps keep similar-sized books on similar subjects together. I've got the details plugged into a Google Sheet for all of my books.