How Do You Organize Your Bookshelf?

plus recommended books by Hannah Stowe & Ben Purkert, recommended music by Oval, and a playlist of new music

I’ve been organizing books this week. Dusting off bookshelves, weeding out what I’ve read, making room for incoming texts. With books coming daily for review or feature for Largehearted Boy, this has become a regular chore (but always a rewarding one).

Handling a book, seeing its cover, often takes me back into the text. The characters, the plot, the themes. A book is often a time machine, one that propels us even when it isn’t open.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how bookshelves are arranged lately, working in a bookstore inflames this. The bookshelves I share with my partner are loosely organized into her books and my books, with several sections (notably poetry, biographies, and anthologies) intermingled. My friends’ books are together, as are books that have featured their Book Notes playlists in the paperback editions. Fiction is mostly separate from nonfiction, with the exception of authors who write both (those books get placed in a writer’s dominant genre, at least according to me).

Someone once said that books should be grouped in conversation with each other, and that thought guides me as I rearrange the shelves monthly.

Now I have to unpack the week’s incoming books, so that the cycle can begin again…

How do you organize your books?

This week’s playlist of new music:

This week’s subscriber playlist includes new music from Jenny Lewis, Madeline Kenney, Christine and the Queens, This Is the Kit, Water from Your Eyes, plus much more.