Musings on how bookshelves can be organised.
While spending much more time at home than usually, many people are cleaning up and rearranging things in their homes. Bookshelves are a great playground for experiments and creativity, and I've done some rearranging in some of mine.
It's no secret that I love books, not only for their content but also their often beautiful covers. So far, I've always had my bookshelves organised by use: one for work-related books, one for older and less frequently used books, and my favourite bookshelf with all the literature I love.
Within that main bookshelf, I've had an order which was rather practical than visual: All books by the same author together, and authors organised by era and country. Besides that, a few sections for books that are not in English. Now, having some extra time on my hand, I've tried out a color scheme for the first time. I was frankly surprised by the amount of color, especially since I own many classics which are often rather in black and white. While I'm not sure if I'll keep this order in the longer run, it's a nice activity to rearrange shelves, and I somehow like the color explosions it creates in some parts of the shelf.
While I know that some people think it's harder to find books this way, I haven't experienced this so far, as I know what my books look like in most cases. I also like how the languages are mixed now, and how some surprising constellations have come about. For example, seeing "King Lear" next to "My Sister the Serial Killer" in the green section is a nice combination, or Hosseini next to Adichie in the purple section, or, possibly my favourite section in gold, where "The Plot Against America" stands next to "This Side of Paradise", "The Lincoln Lawyer" and "Romeo and Juliet". So it's been an interesting experiment, I can only recommend it.