My cookbook shelves…had to start with this one since I blog about food too!
Earlier this week Anne at Modern Mrs Darcy blogged about browsing other people's bookshelves. Like many book lovers she looks to the books that someone has loved or hated to find connections and start conversations. She will write down titles or authors to try and even snap a picture if there are too many good suggestions to simply take notes. Needless to say the comments were full of others who do the same thing, proudly and decidedly not sneaky. We all decided how fun it would be to see each other's bookshelves so that we could virtually browse and hopefully start those same conversations and connections that we would get in each other's living room.
My to read shelf, though this doesn't include the 6 books next in line which are on my bedside table.
If you walk around my house you will find bookshelves in nearly every room and we are constantly trying to squeeze more shelves in. In fact the last time we moved we had 35 book boxes…the movers were not thrilled! One of them told me it was the most books he'd ever moved-and that was not a compliment.
Books about Jane! But not actual Jane books-she's under "A" on the fiction shelves :)
I ascribe to the books are the best decoration theory, so they are everywhere. They are also organized by fiction and non-fiction. The fiction is then broken up by author and non-fiction by subject. A little crazy? Maybe. I am a trained librarian, after all. However, it killed me to I discover that we had bought duplicates of several books because we hadn't been able to find what we needed when they were all jumbled together. Now all of us can find just the right book at just the right time :) Except for the boys-they each have a full bookshelf in their room of all our picture books and younger chapter books. And those are a complete and utter mess-which means they are reading and playing with them and that makes me very happy!
Not the best picture but I love using this spot to rotate oversize books in our living room.
In a way, I think this idea is exactly why websites like Goodreads and Library Thing work. Readers love to see what their friends are reading. We love to talk about it and we love to connect with others about a book-whether we loved it or hated it. It's the best way to get recommendations, and why librarians and book sellers are so knowledgable about their shelves. I have dreams of someday entering all our books into my Goodreads account so I know what exactly we have, but I also go really overwhelmed just trying to enter in my recently read. When I really started using the site I decided to just start tracking my books from that point. If I look at someone else's shelves I often stumble on something I read years ago, but it would be too much to try to find everything!
Ancient history and Bill Bryson..and "dinosaur footprints" made by my boys!
Every nook in the house has a bookshelf…here's one of the 4 (!) fiction shelves that holds some of my favorites-the end of the alphabet and the children's chapter books that the kids aren't old enough for.
I also love the trend among authors to put source books on their websites or in the back of books-even fiction. I have found so many good new authors through those. (If you like historical fiction, 3 of my favorite authors all do this- check out Deanna Raybourn, Lauren Willig and Tasha Alexander!)
If you are looking for more inspiration head over to Modern Mrs Darcy to check out all the linked up bookshelves!
How are your books organized? How do you find new books to read? Do you check out other people's bookshelves?
I'd love to chat with you some more! You can find me on Twitter and Facebook or follow me on Bloglovin or your favorite blogreader. Thanks for stopping by!
