Dec 17, 2010

the dare shelves

In anticipation of dedicating the first several months of 2011 to reading off my TBR shelves alone, I've gone and organized them all more or less by subject. Sometimes I just like sorting books. It makes me feel pleased. Here's what I've got.

The small two-shelf piece in my bedroom now holds all the adult fiction. In no particular order. Bottom right corner has what I think of as the "heavy books"- a few classics and chunksters I've failed to get through before or just been feeling intimidated by! (Starting with the orange spine of Dubliners and going over to the red-bound Dickens novel).
Out in the living room I have a tall bookcase that only holds TBR books. The top shelf here has all the memoirs. (If you click on any of these photos to enlarge you should be able to read some titles, although some are a bit blurry). At the end there they run into adventure stories (mostly of seafaring types) and the second shelf is non-fiction on various subjects, from earthquakes, global warming and writing to cooking, gardening and plant care. There's a few slim volumes of poetry in there too.
The next shelf down finishes up the plants and has nature and animal books. Bottom shelf starting at the left has juvenile books about animals (mostly fiction) then some YA and a few fantasy books, ending with Catching Fire (I don't have the first one in the series so I probably won't get to read that one or I'd be breaking the Dare by visiting the library!). The last eleven books on that shelf don't count; I've actually read them before. The only reason they're sitting in the TBR is that it's been so long since I last read them I'm not sure if they're ones I want to keep. So I plan on giving them a new read before I decide to shelve them with the collection or hand on.
I almost forgot to include the oversize books off my "coffee-table" shelf, in the other bookcase that holds all my permanent collection. Most of these are nature/animal books, with a few on gardening/food and art.

And that's it! Now I feel like I'll easier be able to zero in on what I'm in the mood for, when searching for a read during the Dare. My Library Thing says I've got 121 unread books but when I try to count them on the actual shelves it's more like 184; I must've forgotten to enter a few titles when they came into the house. Still, plenty to choose from!

12 comments:

  1. That is a very high percentage of hardback books - I think my arms would be very strong if I read so many heavy books ;-)

    Good luck with your dare challenge - I don't think I'd last a week and so haven't signed up :-(

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  2. Definitely plenty to choose from!

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  3. It sounds like you're all set!

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  4. I like this system of ordering as you'll be able to go to a particular shelve when you're in the mood for a particular type of read.

    Good luck with the dare!

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  5. I just organized mine too, sort of. I had about 100 books on the floor, and my husband threw a huge fit. So I donated, and reshelved (double stacked in some cases) but they are now all on shelves. This is a good idea. I may need to photograph too!

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  6. I like ordering my shelves by how much I love the books on them. But it doesn't really work when I haven't read the books yet. :p

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  7. Farmlanebooks- Why yes, I do have strong arms! Although I do most of my reading reclining on the bed or sofa, so arms don't actually do most of the supporting ha ha.

    Nymeth- Hopefully the many choices makes it easier to keep going!

    Bermudaonion- Yup!

    Christina- That's exactly why I did it.

    Jenny- I usually don't order my TBR shelves, this is the first time I've ever done so. Whereas all the "keeper" books get regularly rearranged every year it seems. Something about this dare just motivated me to do it with the books that are still strangers to me.

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  8. *sigh* I wish my whole TBR looked like that :p

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  9. It's so much fun to reorganize bookshelves!!

    I've read so much off my physical TBR this year that I don't have all that much left!

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  10. A great selection to hopefully get you through the dare! Now you have me wanting to organize my own tbr shelves :)

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  11. Anonymous12/22/2010

    Good luck with your challenge. Looks like you've got some great books on those shelves. And you seem so much more organized than me.

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  12. Sometimes getting organized is half the battle - in that case, you're in great shape! Good luck with the challenge.

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