Bookshelf Envy: 6 Creative Ways to Organize Your Books for a New Look

Sabrina Sánchez
April 21 2020
Share Bookshelf Envy: 6 Creative Ways to Organize Your Books for a New Look

In these unprecedented times, after weeks (who’s keeping count anymore?) of quarantine, many of us are sitting around staring at four corners and wondering what else to do to possibly pass the time. I have spent a lot of hours organizing and loading my Pinterest boards with new ideas on how to stay tidy. And after reading so many books, my biggest clutter area is now my bookshelf. So I decided it was time for a change and started rearranging. My bookshelf is now my new selfie spot and inspired the creation of my own bookstagram page: @sabiblossombooks. If you decide to reorganize your own shelf, feel free to tag me and @get.lit.erary on Instagram to share the results. I’d love to see what you’ve done to your personal library space.

Here are some ways you can organize a #bookstagram-worthy
bookshelf.

The Library System Method

This means alphabetizing by the author’s last name, followed by alphabetizing each title of that author’s. Okay, full disclosure: I totally used to organize my books this way. It’s extremely time-consuming and a little obsessive, but really gratifying when your friend asks to borrow a title and you know exactly where it is. It also helps keep your 1,000 Stephen King titles together, or any series by any author for that matter. Downside? If you need a book in a pinch, you need to have the author’s last name memorized, which can be rough if you have a gazillion books and remembering names are not your strong suit. If that’s the case, then just organizing them alphabetical by title may be the way to go!

The Instagram-Aesthetic Method

As a test, go on Instagram and type #bookstagram in the search
engine. More than likely what will pop up is a ton of extremely
aesthetically-pleasing photos of books—rows of them, organized by color.
Your eyes will be drawn from all the reds to the blues to the yellows, the
whole rainbow! Truthfully, whenever I see photos like those, it makes me want
to read more, so I think the tactic is extremely effective. It also makes your
shelf look so much…cleaner. Aside from Instagram though, this strategy
works well for people who remember things visually. The old saying goes “never
judge a book by its cover,” but a memorable cover—or spine—goes a really long
way.

The “Let Me See How Many Literary Fiction Books I Have” Method

While my personal organizing preference has always been the library
system, it can become a challenge to maintain, especially these days when all
the extra time to read has my books flying on and off the shelf. I decided recently
to revert back to organizing by genre. I made labels for each section using
Canva, and I’m really happy with the result. If categorizing is your thing,
this is the perfect way to compartmentalize your go-to’s, one type from the
next.

The Mom, Dad, Baby Method

It’s possible you live with a bunch of bookworms, and maybe
there’s just no way to have your own shelf, so you need to split it with
everyone else. With this system, everyone in the house gets their own
respective section of the bookshelf. This will help categorize and separate
your books from your partner’s, sister’s, kid’s, grandma’s, etc.

The Biggest to Smallest Method

This works for the people who are keen on symmetry and wouldn’t
dare put a pocket-size book next to a 6 x 9 hardcover. If done right, you might
just be able to calculate the slope of your books by the time you’re finished.

The Shove-It-in-the-Shelf Method

Now this is a tactic I do not recommend, but I think it’s one we’ve
all done when maintaining the shelf becomes too difficult. At some point, you
just shove it where it fits, until the next time you go through a
spring-cleaning cycle. While not necessarily “organized,” it’s a reality every
booklover must face. As a result, it’s worthy enough to make the list.

Staring and a pile of books

Regardless of how you choose to organize your shelf, these are
some must-own titles you should place somewhere special:

This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.

It
by Stephen King

Stephen King’s terrifying, classic #1 New York Times bestseller, “a landmark in American literature” (Chicago Sun-Times)—about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It.

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It
Stephen King

It: Chapter Two—soon to be a major motion picture in 2019!

Stephen King’s terrifying, classic #1 New York Times bestseller, “a landmark in American literature” (Chicago Sun-Times)—about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It.

Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real.

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers.

Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.

“Stephen King’s most mature work” (St. Petersburg Times), “It will overwhelm you…to be read in a well-lit room only” (Los Angeles Times).

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To All the Boys I've Loved Before
by Jenny Han

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

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To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Jenny Han

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is now a major motion picture streaming on Netflix!
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

Lara Jean’s love life gets complicated in this New York Times bestselling “lovely, lighthearted romance” (School Library Journal) from the bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series.

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once?

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

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When Life Gives You Lululemons
by Lauren Weisberger

The Devil Wears Prada’s Emily Charlton gets the spin-off she deserves” (Cosmopolitan) in the months-long New York Times bestseller from Lauren Weisberger in which three women team up to bring a bad man down in the tiny suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut.

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When Life Gives You Lululemons
Lauren Weisberger

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Twice in a Blue Moon
by Christina Lauren

With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of second chances, a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it…

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Twice in a Blue Moon
Christina Lauren

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners and the “delectable, moving” (Entertainment Weekly) My Favorite Half-Night Stand comes a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it…

Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.

With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of young love and second chances.

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In the Midst of Winter
by Isabel Allende

An instant New York Times bestseller, In the Midst of Winter is about three very different people who are brought together in a mesmerizing story that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People).

During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant, Lucia Maraz, a fellow academic from Chile, for her advice. As these three lives intertwine, each will discover truths about how they have been shaped by the tragedies they witnessed, and Richard and Lucia will find unexpected, long overdue love.

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In the Midst of Winter
Isabel Allende

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