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)

I'd have the books written by family and friends to begin with. I'm not going to mention them but there are several, including two autobiographies, two travel books, a book of poems and several local history ones.

We have non fiction in the study, cookbooks in the bookshelf nearest the kitchen (bottom shelf because the weight bowed a shelf previously). Sitting room has A-P fiction (rest is on the landing) and cartoon books (Asterix, TinTin, Calvin & Hobbes etc). Children’s fiction in children’s bedroom and our room (my childhood books). All bookcases for fiction are double-stacked, I am promised fitted bookshelves…

We have a tall antique Art Nouveau bookcase in our living room and as we collect books on Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts Movement and Pre-Raphaelite art, those books live there...along with books by/about Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Jekyll as well as a few interiors reference books. There are about 150 at the moment, are not in any order and are the books we're most likely to read when sitting in that room. On the coffee table we have a few of the largest ones.

In the kitchen we have a few cookery books on the island shelving and on the upstairs landing a smaller Art Nouveau bookcase contains mostly gardening books plus a few vintage books bought for their interesting binding.

Our bedroom has floor to ceiling built in shelving in an alcove that has DH's Christmas and local history books, other history reference books plus my historical novels and non-fiction books on historical periods I'm interested in. There's a separate wall shelf with TBR books.

In the hall we've got some ikea shelving with mainly general fiction and some overflow non-fiction stuff. Ultimately these shelves will go into a bedroom which we're going to turn into a little library/snug where we'll add more shelves and more books 😁

Sayers and Heyers to hand, along with frequently used reference books.

We have reference books in the office/study. Each of the DC has a book case in their room, there are a further two bookcases of ‘children’s literature’ on landings and a full height one of ‘adult’ books. My TBR pile piles is under my bed. Hardbacks have their own bookcase in my bedroom. Cookery books in the kitchen for easy reference. There are books everywhere in my house, and all 6 of us have Kindles as well.

I understand OP!

I have a study where I have fiction and reference books, mixture of paperback and hard backs, but in the front room I have lovely posh hardbacks mainly non fiction, especially nature writing.

Books are my favoured ever thing and it is important to me to have them in the right place.

Justasking111 a friend of mine was a secondhand bookseller. He frequently got requests like 20 feet of books with black spines. Subject matter was immaterial. He actually found it useful for getting rid of otherwise unsaleable stock.

I did try the rainbow thing. It actually was very soothing but I couldnt find anything.

I have a shelf of history books, a shelf of science books, a shelf of Virago Modern Classics and a shelf of cookbooks on my biggest built in bookcase. The other shelves are hardbacks and trade paperbacks roughly grouped by author. There are 4 other bookcases of paperbacks in other rooms.
My daughter and I are currently in negotiations as the books are starting to overflow and I think we should do a bit of a cull in the new year but she thinks we should buy another big bookcase.
I regularly donate books to a second hand shop and I only keep books I really enjoyed or that I think the DC might read some day but I've lived here a long time and that's starting to be a lot of books.

LibertyLily I love the sound of your house. We have books everywhere too. A friend said it was like living in a library.

The Art Deco bookcases must be a huge feature in themselves.

Art Nouveau, sorry!!!

Mine are arranged cookery, gardening, nature, auto/biography, history, science, language and general essays in the front room. Fiction, short stories plays and poetry in the back.

Fiction is A-Z, the rest in bunches.

My DD who wants to buy another bookcase moved a bookcase from the hall into her bedroom this year as she's started collecting poetry books and ran out of shelf space. I've rarely been so proud.

It depends. Are you trying to impress or do you want to be surrounded by friends?

My books are separated, in the library, into fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction. All alphabetical by author and then title except where they are part of a series in which case the series is together before the next alphabetical title by the same author.

I could not split up the first bit of the alphabet into a different room. That would be too disconcerting.

Books we have in the living room are all our travel guide books (alphabetical by destination) and one set of 10 classic sci-fi books whose spines do form a rainbow as it goes! They were a set DH had on display before we met so it doesn't annoy me to keep them apart from the rest. And I see them as separate anyway because they are a set I'd otherwise have to break up to alphabeticise!

There used to be a big second hand bookshop near the railway station in Oxford that sold colour coordinated books by the yard!

Messily but all Stephen King have to be together the rest as you want to

Main bookcase downstairs has a mix of ancient sites, folklore, folk horror and oddities. Dresser has my collection of occult botany and herbalism books. Foot of the stairs is a small bureau/bookcase with cookbooks. Main bookcase on our bedroom has everything from Victorian engineering to poisons via witchcraft, occult philosophy and magical realism. Study bedroom has three bookcases of ecology, environmental science, deep ecology, conservation, botany, geography and mycology. Anything not fitting into that is in two stacks either side of the window.

I shall be buried in books…

I had my bookshelves fitted with metal recessed bookcase strips ( so the shelves are height adjustable in centimeters) and shelve the books by matched heights. The idea is to have the books fit the space so closely, it minimises dust collecting on the tops of books. When the shelves are filled with books the strips are invisible.

Where do the rest of your books go? We have best books in the sitting room, as in display copies and various editions. Mostly the hardbacks then. They're not really reading copies and the room is quite formal/occasional and not used daily. If your living room is a relaxed, casual room you might want your paperbacks to hand, and the books you might often reach for.

Organisation for me is by author, not alphabetically ordered, but this is trumped by publisher and type if they're all very similarly bound.

I did look into recording them all on a database, in order to keep track, but never found anything. There might be more choices available now.

I choose F) Rainbow order by colour of spine (obviously this is a joke, I'm not a monster) but only because this is the first thing that has made me laugh all day 😄

Given you're filling an alcove, I really recommend adjustable shelving; you might now have more than enough space for all your books, but trust me, that will change! We, like others, have metal runners in our alcoves, but wooden shelves (solid wood) so they look fairly attractive.

The ones that look pretty. Dont gaf if they're high brow or not, as long as they look nice. I reserve my mills and boon shite to under the bed though. I do have some standards.

We have teen and kids books they've read and want to keep in there. Hallway is work/study plus fiction I love plus two shelves of TBR

Upstairs are 60+ TBR in my room.

I don't think my guests are remotely interested in my book shelf.

B - it is in a front room which has visitors. Non fiction books are more likely to be dipped into and the book left behind. Fiction books get dipped into and then "borrowed" to finish reading....(and never bloody well returned!!!!!)

I'm a reader and and English Literature graduate but in my living room they're arranged loosely by spine colour. I am not sorry! I do find that it makes them look tidier.

I'm a minimalist at heart, but I do like to have some books on shelves. I keep them for appearance, things i've not read yet, classics and reference books. All others I prefer on kindle and I use the library and charity shops as much as possible.