Please settle an argument, am I odd?

[sashh]

So my carer has just come into my office and made a remark about my 'eclectic' book collection.

I responded that they are organised by Dewey-decimal system.

He claim this is odd.

In order not to drip feed my cookery books are in the living room and in spine colour order and fiction is kept on my kindle.

I do not think I am odd. I think it is completely sensible to have text books organised this way.

@emilyfrost

I think it’s odd. Most people don’t organise their books they just shove them on the bookshelf 🤷‍♀️

Most people organise their books, surely, or you’d never find anything. My fiction is done by date order, until the mid 20th century. Then it’s alphabetical. Non fiction is done by category- history, biography, miscellaneous etc. Separate categories for thrillers/crime/poetry. Separate category for foreign language books.

Did your carer mean eccentric, perhaps?

Most people don’t organise their books they just shove them on the bookshelf

Most people i do, some use Dewy Decimal, i do fiction by author from A-Z and publication order if more than one by an author. Fiction by subject. Cookery books are arranged in the dining room by size.

@emilyfrost

I think it’s odd. Most people don’t organise their books they just shove them on the bookshelf 🤷‍♀️

Mine are just in alphabetical order by authors.

By ‘eclectic’ he means varied and wide-ranging in regards to topic I think. He probably wasn’t referring to your system of organisation.

Mine are just in size order so they look tidy.

Untidy bookshelves make me feel itchy! 😂

Yes, perhaps he meant ‘eccentric’.

We have a fairly large home library (4k books) and its organized into sections, genres, historical periods, countries then authors. Our home, our books, works for us. Never wondered how others do it or considered it odd if they do it differently.

I’ve never been organised enough to go full Dewey Decimal.

My fiction books are organised alphabetically by authors surname. Books by the same author roughly in publication order.
Non-fiction is organised roughly by category (science / health / history etc). They’re pretty disorganised within those categories, but I don’t have enough non-fiction books for that to be a problem.
Cookery books are kept by themselves in the kitchen.

The only books shoved onto a bookshelf with no attempt at organisation are books that I’ve bought but not yet read. They’ve got their own shelf.

Perfectly normal. I have my own system for my own eclectic selection of books.

What's odd, is the number of people who don't have loads of books. Although that does mean they don't need to organize them! Maybe your carer is one of these people?

@sashh

So my carer has just come into my office and made a remark about my 'eclectic' book collection.

I responded that they are organised by Dewey-decimal system.

He claim this is odd.

In order not to drip feed my cookery books are in the living room and in spine colour order and fiction is kept on my kindle.

I do not think I am odd. I think it is completely sensible to have text books organised this way.

Your response was odd, because it bore no relation to the comment prompting it. An 'eclectic' book collection just means that it includes books on many diverse subjects. How they are arranged on the bookshelves, be that Dewey, height, or spine colour, is neither here nor there; the 'eclectic' comment related to the contents of those books.

I don't organise my books so precisely, but they are broadly organised by subject.

@MintyMabel

Dewey decimal is fine, it’s a sensible way to order books. But I could never understand doing it by colour. Books aren’t ornaments to look pretty.

Actually, colour isn't that unreasonable. It is aesthetically pleasing to see blocks of colour. Plus I can generally remember the the spine colour of books. e.g. I know my first Richard Feynman book is blue, but the second is red. Now personally, I would put them together, but I might well try to sandwich them between two other authors who had blue and red spines. I order by author and then order the authors by colour.

How does your carer order their books? or haven't they got any? or do they stick to one small area of interest only?

DH's books are by country of origin and then according to author (fiction). Non-fiction according to topic.
Mine are according to genre and then by author or date of publication depending on genre (fiction). Non-fiction by topic.
And I collect language courses.

The collections you can create on a kindle are not the same.

I'm an avid reader, but read once and then ditch them. Do you all have enormous houses?

Maybe he was confused by your answer - he said your collection is eclectic, ie it represents many different topics....and you answered about the Dewey system. I think you need to chill , neither of you seemed to understand what the other was saying.

@sashh

Sorry I should have said :

YANBU - organise your books how you want

YABU - yes it's weird and creepy

Odd doesn’t necessarily mean weird and creepy. The most common meaning is different to what is usual or expected. I think it’s unusual to use the Dewey system at home, but not remotely creepy. I think it’s perfectly possible you’re hearing an insult when none was intended.

I think it’s perfectly possible you’re hearing an insult when none was intended.

OP didn't say she was insulted. She asked if her way of arranging her books was odd.

Your response was only vaguely related to what he said and was also pompous.

Like if he had said 'it's raining' and you replied 'I'm going to Seattle in February'.

Your carer saying it was weird is most likely just silly chit chat, definitely not worth giving it much thought. There isn’t a right or wrong way to store books.

Of course it’s up to you how you organise your books. It’s possible I’d rearrange a couple if we were friends though, to see if you noticed.

I live in a top floor flat built into the roof, so we have no room for bookcases. I’ve been kindle-only for years and all my old books are stored at my mum’s house. I really miss them. And if I could have them at home I’d arrange them in colour blocks, I think it looks lovely.

@pictish

By ‘eclectic’ he means varied and wide-ranging in regards to topic I think. He probably wasn’t referring to your system of organisation.

This.

^^ eclectic was the wrong word to describe a system that is by category. Perhaps your books ate quite wide ranging and they were refering to that.

Or they could have used the wrong word, it happens.

Colour coding books IS odd in my view, we have a lot of books and I'd have to know what colour it was to find something and be hopping about all over the place if I wanted to get 2 or 3 on something.

I don’t think it’s odd, but I don’t think your carer was commenting on your method of organisation.
I used to work in a library and while I don’t use a formal categorisation system, all my books are arranged by subject - makes it easier to find them. Fiction are arranged by genre, but I don’t have that many novels.

That's not odd, that's a dream come true. I've got kids, will have to wait until they grow a bit.