Bookmark Chat: Organization

New Bookshelf, Who Dis?

Hello reader!

Recently, I was gifted a new bookshelf for my birthday because my books had long since ceased to fit on the ones I already owned. A tragedy and a good problem to have all at the same time, in my opinion. Well, my birthday was back in September and I finally got around to building that beautiful new bookshelf.

And guess what?

My books still don’t fit 😂 So that got me to thinking about books and organizing and how I can make my limited shelf space work. It also made me immediately assess my bedroom to see if we could find space to fit yet another bookshelf… because I have a problem.

Time to Organize!

One good thing about building that new shelf was I had to go through the various stacks of books I had scattered about my office. It was an illuminating experience, that’s for sure. I found quite a few books where I had two copies (oops!), a few books that I didn’t even remember buying, and lots that reignited my excitement for the book just by pulling them out of the pile. But then I had to consider how I wanted to organize them all!

Currently, all my read books are downstair on two bookshelves, while I had one bookshelf upstairs for my unread books. As the years have gone by, though, I’ve been terrible at transferring my read books downstairs, which leaves no space for all the new books that were coming in. Thus, the random books stacks were born. As I went through my books after building the new shelf, I made sure to separate out all my read books because I want to get back to keeping those in separate spaces. And I got almost all my unread books on the shelf… but there are still a couple (much smaller!) stacks lying about.

This prompted me to think about how to make more space for all my unread books, which led me to ponder a topic I’ve avoided for quite some time…

To Unhaul or Not Unhaul?

I am a reader at heart but you know what else I am? A book hoarder. Once a book has come into my possession, it never leaves. At least… that’s how I’ve lived most of my life. Whether I hate a book or love it, I can’t seem to make myself part with any book I’ve ever either bought or received.

I think, however, it’s time for a change. My space dilemma has made me finally sit down an seriously consider doing a massive unhaul. The book hoarder in me rages against the idea, but the organizer in me thinks this is just what the doctor ordered. I can not only make space for the books I haven’t read yet, but I can cultivate bookshelves that really reflect who I am as a reader. Right now, there are books I gave one or two stars that are prominently displayed on my shelves. We can’t have that, right?

I think my other unhaul roadblock, beyond my dragon-like obsession with not parting with any bit of my hoard, is that I’m unsure how I want to get rid of the unlucky books I decide to let go. We don’t have a used bookstore that’s terribly close to us. My local library does accept donations, but I feel like I’m going to have a least a couple of boxes of books that I unhaul and, for some reason, I feel like I would be such a burden dropping all that off at once, lol. They probably wouldn’t care, but that’s how my weird little mind works. I suppose I could try selling them online, like with Pango Books, but that sounds an awful lot like work and my full time job is quite enough, thank you. So I have the will, but not a plan, and I’m a woman who needs a plan before she does anything.

Perhaps it’s enough that I’ve finally made that leap and made the decision to get rid of some books. Now, I just need to come up with a plan to make it happen. The bookish organization journey continues!

How do you organize your books? How do you get rid of books you no longer want to keep? Let me know in the comments and help me plan!