Tuesday Tea: How do you organize and store your books?
Help a fellow reader out — books are taking over her home
We recently received an email from a member of the Strong Sense of Place community that said:
As a fellow book lover and collector, can you share how you keep your books organized? I don’t have a lot of space and books are taking over my townhome!
Our answer wasn't entirely helpful — we read primarily on our Kindles these days. We have one BILLY bookcase from IKEA (doesn't everybody have at least one?!) for Mel's books, a few IKEA cube shelves in Dave's office for his art books, and one built-in shelf in the living room for travel books and cookbooks. We literally have no spill-over space. That means we've had to be strict with ourselves about how many physical books we can add to our collection.
(When I was in high school, I dated a boy whose mom read so much, she'd filled all available bookshelf space and had turned the stairs into overflow shelving. The left side of each step was lined with a stack of books, all the way up to the second floor. I remember thinking that was pretty genius. —Mel)
Happily, we have all of you smart people to share your tips and ideas with our overwhelmed book lover.
I radically downsized my books before a long-distance move last year, using a strict set of rules. I thought I wouldn’t miss the books I had no plans to read again. But I do! Not the individual books so much as the collective, the decorative and cosy presence of them. I’ve begun amassing books again, and my organization is simple - faves and classics in the living room, one shelf of a three-shelf case in my office for my TBR. If the TBR shelf is filled, I cannot take in more books I have not previously read until I read some of my TBR and reshelve them with my ‘permanent’ collection. If they don’t really belong in that collection (ie,books I don’t see as keepers) I bring them to the secondhand bookshop where I work or else the little free library in my neighbourhood, but I don’t think I’ll ever radically downsize all at once again. So my advice is, I guess, it’s okay to go slow!
Eventually we founded a bookstore! Not kidding. All those books I carried around from college—my favorites— I actually put for sale in the store (new and used) with a note that it had been previously read and loved by me. The store was a success, we eventually sold, but the new owners are wonderful book-y people and the legacy goes on! Now I donate books I’ve read or give to friends. Just not enough room.