I don't trust people who don't have any books in their houses.

[WayHarshTai]

I think they are a bit evil.

My sister and her DH only have a couple of Jamie Oliver books and THAT'S IT. Freaks.

I get a bit twitchy if I visit someone and I can't see their bookshelf, I have been known to snoop on the pretext of finding the loo or something to put my mind at rest.

I think it shows trerrible character and possibly criminal leanings to not have hundreds some books around the house.

AIBU? I know i'm not really, it's just common sense.

CHJR Your links doesn't work.

Last time I checked, my smenis was so small that it was infact a clit!

Fiction by surname but along three ten-foot shelves of different heights so as to waste no space - so look in three places. Everything else, roughly by Dewey. That's the ones that have been sorted - the rest are yet to be re-shuffled. But shuffling is like one of those moving-tiles puzzles, but without the missing square. Hence the stalagmites on the floor.

See why I prefer a nice 18th-century vellum binding, Paul? At least it doesn't mix me up between my hyperlinks and my boldfaces...

I have thousands of books in my attic (literally), and loads on a bookcase in my bedroom. Don't have any on display downstairs because there's just no room (tiny house).

I can smell burning. Must be the whiff of burning martyr.

Pamish, the solution to the shelf-height problem is an Ikea Billy bookcase (or 2, or 200), plus 2 extra shelves per tall case plus a drill . In a pinch, 9 1/2 inches from the top of one shelf to the bottom of the next (but don't forget to allow for the thickness of the shelves). I'm in luxury housing at the moment and can allow 10 inches!

I did some book binding at Uni and books can be beautiful things, but they start to take over your house when you have too many. What's going on with your hyperlinking CHJR? I was hoping it was going to be a rude and amusing picture!

I group the poetry with fiction. I count biographies / autobiographies as non-fiction, and sort them by surname of the person it's about.

Where essays end up depends on the subject matter.

Is it wrong to have books for reading on the toilet?

Might be all the books,All those books must be a fire hazard,bet you lot never thought of that.

Anyway, we all seem to agree, basically. If you have to have the floors of the house/flat specially reinforced, it's time to take some more boxes of books to Oxfam. (The only charity shop that actually wants books. We clearly all know this, I've noticed already.) If you only have Jamie Oliver on the shelves, take the money you're saving on books and bookcases and hire a private chef...

We save the Sunday paper magazines to read on the toilet.

They ARE a fire hazard. And you certainly can have too many bMe and DP cleared two rooms of my dad's books for my poor mother's sanity. The boxes' weight added up

I think it's odd to have a special bookshelf next to the toilet filled with books, which are presumably there to be read while on the toilet.

I've only ever seen this once. But maybe most people who read on the toilet carry the books / magazines in and out of the bathroom with them?

They ARE a fire hazard. And you certainly can have too many books. Me and DP cleared two rooms of my dad's books for my poor mother's sanity. The boxes' weight added up to FOUR TONNES. Yep.

(Scuse double post- hit post my mistake)

Shadow, this is most helpful. But then do history books end up with the other nonfiction (ie biographies), but, but surely not by surname? By date? And what about those pesky cookbooks, which fit no other category? Personally I've put them by the bed since it's at about this hour usually that I plan out the food. (So much for tomorrow's meals. WOULD you all stop distracting me and get serious.) But then I don't seem to have many cookbooks. More spice jars what is that all about then?

Really I think I may be more concerned about your views on the spices. I am after all pretty dug in on the books, but I am of two minds about my MiL and keeping the mustard out of the fridge??? Or only if it is wholegrain?

CHJR, Billy bookcases are too deep for most paperbacks so precious space is wasted unless you have the books two deep, then half get lost. They are just right for A4 books and magazine boxes (there's another thread...) I'd rather build my own shelves so they fit exactly into the space. In fact Ikea did have a really useful shelf system called Broder which was based around a sprung pole, so you can hang shelves on cardboard walls. Sadly discontinued.

And by the way, if you lot READ BOOKS PROPERLY, namely Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, you would know they're not a fire hazard at all. Books are quite hard to burn because the pages are so tight-packed. Now flour on the other hand Oh what shall I do about dinner tomorrow? I am pretty sure V Woolf had something to say about this dilemma

CHJR - History books have to be as chronological as possible. The history section would be horribly confusing if you did anything else.

I keep my cookbooks in the kitchen, by themselves.

And.... I'm curious. What has your MIL got to do with your mustard?

OMG, Pamish, now I know you are a True Kindred Spirit, as Anne of Green Gables would say. Billy is far too deep, and I was grieved to see Ikea announce last year that the advent of the Kindle had inspired them to deepen the shelves because they would henceforth be only for ornaments. They used to make a variant called Mast, even cheaper than Billy, and about half the depth, but I lost those two moves ago.

In the UK I had loads of books! Fiction, lovely coffee table books, children's books, all sorts. Now I am in New Zealand and books are sooooooo expensive. I feel like I may never buy a book again, at least not til I am working again.
You in the UK are so lucky!

Mind you here I use the library loads more still have lots if books around, they just change over frequently.

So no, yanbu! But maybe people's books are in non-living room spaces so you can't see them on a short visit.

Oh, Lordy, Shadow, if you have to ask that, I refer you to the usual MN posts about MiLs. Surely you don't want to know about our conflicting views on: jams and other sauces (stored in fridge or out, and does it make a difference if the best-before date is 1996?), DS2 (mainstream or special school?), DS1 (hair too long or not?), DP (yes or no shouldn't I be ironing his shirts better?), or cooking (Elisabeth David, Julia Child, or Robert Carrier?).
She does have a basic discomfort with our keeping books, well, everywhere they fit. MiL, bless her sincerely, was to the manor born, or is it the manner born, and thinks One Should Have a Separate Library, All Leather-Bound and Dusted by the Second Housemaid. And of course mustard should never be refrigerated, anything else is very non-U (what DID Nancy Mitford have to say?)...
It must be getting late. I seem to be hijacking this thread (unsuccessfully however and if there are the right number of consonants in that word then I haven't yet had too much wine )

FB users, you will know of the group called Book Porn, no?

www.facebook.com/pages/Book-Porn/371969449495192?fref=ts

Their photos of bookshelves are just, well, erotic. More than some of the fetishistic pinups of humans.