What books would you put in the front room?

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

We're reorganising our house and putting a bunch of shelves in one of the alcoves in the living room: about seven foot high by three foot wide, so a decent slug of space for books which have been left homeless by other elements of reorganisation.

Genuinely befuddled as to which books to put there, and I need to make a decision in order to decide how to space the shelves.

Which sort of books would you put there for the best aesthetic effect/efficiency?

A) Fiction authors A:G, in strict alphabetical and/or chronological order, including full-size hardbacks alongside the scruffy second hand paperbacks (so less space efficient)
B) Non-fiction hardbacks and trade paperbacks classed by general subject in a vaguely Dewey Decimal orientation (why yes, I did intern in a library, how did you guess)
C) Carefully collated high status novelists/poets/playwrights only: pre-1930, Nobel Laureates and Booker nominees preferred, in order to give a highly somewhat misleading view of our highbrow literary tastes
D) A few selected writers of whom we have a critical mass: starting with Georgette Heyer obviously.
E) Classic children's literature
F) Rainbow order by colour of spine (obviously this is a joke, I'm not a monster)
G) Other, all suggestions welcome
H) Declutter them all and buy a Kindle (this option included for the convenience of the Kondo-minded posters who always say this)

B. (also Dewey trained).

The alphabetised option.

I do like an alphabetised bookcase.

Books on the occult :D

Eh?

All of them?

See, I actually have a collection of books of the occult.

But they’re in my back room mixed up with embarrassing chic-lit.

Just fire them all on the shelves in whatever order. Life is too short to worry about shit like this.

Whatever books you are likely to want when in that room.
So in our case downstairs we had reference books and children's books.

Quite like a rainbow system myself.

This is some pretentious nonsense. And you don't need to have worked in a library to understand the Dewy system.

Books that you actually read 🤣 as in not for decorative purposes only.

No of course you don't, but people who've worked in libraries are surely more likely to want reach for Dewey as their natural instinct.

With regard to the accusation of pretentiousness, if you're going to put some books in one room and some books in another and some books in another, then you need to decide a logic for what's going where. And in order to make that decision you need to think about it: just a little bit. If you can't think about inconsequential nonsense between Christmas and New Year, and ask MNers for their thoughts on aforementioned inconsequential nonsense, then when can you?

I keep all the large books which I read sitting in an armchair or on the sofa because they are heavy. Ditto Art books which I tend to look at casually in the evening.

In our sitting room we have one big case of cookbooks and one big case of the sorts of books one might want to refer to regularly- dictionaries, atlases, poetry collections etc (obv replace with whatever has this role for you). It's purely practical so that we don't have to trek upstairs to check a recipe or a reference.

Other than this, what I like to see best is a total mishmash of books- fiction and non-fiction together. My husband vaguely tries to keep all novels by the same writer in one place and vaguely tries to order thematically (so whodunnits together etc) while I prefer a bit more chaos. We have a huge number of books so this isn't necessarily the most efficient approach, but I like to give serendipity a chance.

All the ones you are likely to go back to and dip into fairly frequently.

e.g. Poetry books, Art books. next few books that you have queued-up to read, books you refer to on subjects like witchcraft and the tarot (my list...I realise this might not feature heavily in your list😃), books for hobbies that you do, reference books you refer to moderately often (e.g. books for identifying wildflowers/birds/insects/trees). any fiction or non fiction books you are likely to actually go back to or dip into again (I'll re-read a random Sherlock Holmes short story every few weeks)

That way you have all the most referred to/handiest books in one place. (with the possible exception of cook books, which are probably better off in the kitchen)

This really is a bit silly, you know.

Dewey is just ridiculous, unless you have a massive house and thousands of books.

I'd go with the Heyers.

I keep all my old degree/MA stuff in the front room. Books I actually read are in the bedroom and work related books in the corridors.
I ain't read the front ones in years but they make me look clever innit.

All books get read, but unless you operate a fairly rigorous pruning system, which I very much don't, most books spend far more time "on display" than they do being read. That's just maths.

And now I'm putting a batch in a "public" room, which I never have before, the question of what they look like is more of a live issue.

In our house cook books and art books are in the kitchen as are some reference books (dictionaries/thesaurus/atlas etc). Other non- fiction are upstairs. In the front room we have whatever my favourite series of crime books are at any time along with some odd ones on a bottom shelf. I keep my vintage books in our bedroom and then other books are upstairs. Oh and crochet books are also in the front room.

Great thread!

I want to store my books more openly but mine are all just average fiction paperbacks - nothing high brow or fancy. I need a massssssive book shelf just to keep all my TBR books.

I put books out that we read the most. The rest go in a cupboard, which is basically a book case with doors . I really dislike too many books out. Particularly if it’s clearly done for show.

I vaguely arrange books by height, or at least that was the plan. In reality, when I manage to cram another bookcase into the house I just fill it by taking books from the other shelves that are two books deep.

I expect to die in a book avalanche in the not too distant future.

Everyone who has been to school is Dewey trained 😂

Just to add in another variable, size of books may matter and whether you have fixed or adjustable shelves both in your living room and elsewhere.

I would probably go for option B all else being equal.

Put a door on to make it a cupboard. Then it doesn't matter.

I tend to keep non fiction downstairs and fiction upstairs in their owners bedroom. Mostly because the non fiction is for the whole family but we all have our preferred fiction types.

BeetyAxe with the greatest respect, this may not be the thread for you 🙂

We have loads of books, shelves in every room except the bathroom. We have never perfected the system but moving books around and discovering something you haven't read for ages is one of life's simple pleasures.

I would put good quality fiction there OP, although my main concern is that you don't have enough shelves.

Have you read "Howard's End is on the Landing"?