all the books

We had the carpets cleaned. We had to empty the family room and living room of most of the furniture. I'd been wanting to reorganize the bookshelves since last winter, but I didn't really want to get into that right now. I figured we'd leave the bookshelves where they were and they'd clean around them. But Cyn carried all of the books to the extra bedroom. So tonight, after the carpets were dry, we carried them all back out. It took us both about 20 minutes. Then I just spent an hour and a half sorting them.

Some categories are easy. Cookbooks, books about wine, and books about whisky. History. But I have a book about the history of a distillery. Is that whisky or history? Whisky, I guess, since that's where I'd look for it. Biography of Jim Morrison goes in the biography section. But a "biography" of The Doors goes in the rock music section? Fictionalized graphic novel of Jimi Hendrix's life goes in rock, bio or art? Sketches of Cedarburg goes in art (sketches), architecture (mostly details of buildings) or history (the town)? Wait, we have two copies - I can put one in art and one in architecture. A pretty book full of photos and history of bridges. Art/photography, history or engineering? Well, I don't think I have an engineering section, and the book is too big to fit anywhere except the top shelf. A book of letters by Picasso. Bio/memoirs or art? It doesn't have a whole lot of art in it, so memoirs. Where do I put all my books that are about Tolkien's fiction? Next to the fiction? There's a book of Life Magazine's photos of WWII. Photography/art or history? History, I guess. The Art of Star Wars. Movies/TV or art? Yes. I think there will be a continuum from art how-to, art history, art, art popular culture, to pop culture/movies/TV/music. David Sedaris - fiction or humor? Yes, again. A continuum from fiction to humorous fiction, to plain old humor. A book on the history of comic books? No idea.

It's tough doing the continuum, though, since how do you arrange it within a category? Fiction, alphabetical by author? Then how do you slide to another category of fiction? Hopefully I can fill up a shelf with one, and move to the next shelf with the next category.

I thin we're going to run out of room. We already had books on the floor under the shelves. I was a little surprised at some of the books. We've got over a foot of yearbooks. Mine, Cyn's and both of her parents'? I occasionally go for one or two of mine. Like when the plumber was in, and we got to talking about the old days (he was in my class), so grabbed the book to try and remember who these people were. Anyway, I should find a new home for the other two or three. I've got some art how-to books I probably won't be looking at again. A lot of the fantasy and science fiction should probably go downstairs with the rest of it (how many copies of The Hobbit do we have, anyway?). But those shelves are already full. Need moar shelf space! And I kinda wanted to have some arsty or cool knick-knacks on the shelves again. Oh well, we probably couldn't agree on anything that looked good.

Also, I've wanted to replace the shelves themselves for a long time. My dad made them when I was very small. They're holding up well, but the style is... not... quite what I want. They're a shaker style. The shelves have tenons that stick through slots in the verticals and are held in place by wooden wedges. And there are unused slots, so that doesn't looks so great. I priced some new shelving a few years ago, and wow. Not only were they not quite as big as what we have now, but being that they were found online, I'm not certain of the quality, and they cost more than either of our couch and chair sets.

So I'll get these books racked on what we've got. Not sure if I can get that done this weekend or not. Depends on the weather.