Laura’s Books and Blogs – Bookshelf Tour 2023

Back in 2021, I wrote a post where I took readers on a tour of my bookshelves. Back then, my shelves were kept in a dimly lit back room on cheap Walmart bookshelves that bowed and bent under the weight of all of my books. I was running out of room, and I was envious of the bookshelves that I saw online from other book bloggers and book vloggers.

So, when I began to remodel my house, I made the decision to turn my spare bedroom into a library with wall-to-wall quality shelves and a couch nearby exclusively for reading. After almost two long years of renovations, the rest of my house was in order, and I was ready to order my bookshelves.

After extensive research online, I found a nice, wooden bookcase from Ashley Furniture. I ordered two, knowing that the wall I had reserved for my books would be wide enough for a pair of these shelves along with a smaller shelf that I was reserving for my graphic novels.

On the day they arrived, I expected them to be in pieces. So, I had them dropped off into my old bookshelf room only to find that they were fully assembled. Not wanting the delivery guys to track through my house on my brand new carpet, I had them leave them where they were, and I managed to drag them up the stairs to their new home myself, and here they stand.

Below is my updated bookshelf tour.

Organizing my shelves

Readers are very specific in the way that their books are shelved and organized. There are so many different options. You could take the Reese Witherspoon route and go by color, get technical and go full Dewey Decimal, or just do a classic alphabetic system.

I organize my shelves by genre, and within that genre, I try to group books by the same authors together and also try to keep hardbacks together, paperbacks together, and then organize in a size order that makes sense, keeping short rows from toppling over and trying to make the shelf look as least awkward as possible.

It’s not the most scientific system, but it makes sense for my particular organizational stye. If I’m looking for a specific book, I’m going to think of its genre first, and I collect a lot of different genres. So, it’s going to be the easiest for me to locate it from there.

One decision I found myself making shelf by shelf was whether to align the books evenly or push them all to the back of the shelf and not worry about how much they stick out – or don’t. Some books, like my coffee table books, are big and clunky, and most of them reached to the edge of the shelf, or even stuck out past the shelf. Others, like my book series, are all going to be the same size and shape. So, they’ll all look good being shoved together.

TBR books

I’m not a big fan of placing books horizontally on the shelves. I know that they can serve as an effective bookend, but I don’t like the way they look. The only books I place horizontally are my TBR pile. This is to differentiate them from the read books on my shelves. It also helps me to judge the size of my pile and try my best to keep this pile to a minimum.

I try not to have more than 30 books on this shelf. Some books in this pile I have read before, but if I previously borrowed the book and have since picked up a copy, then I put them in the pile to be reread.

Next year, my goal is to reread books from some of the other shelves and not worry so much about getting the TBR pile down to any certain number. It’s safe to say that there are always opportunities to buy or obtain books from Little Free Libraries, and, as any reader knows, to wait to reread any others before that pile is extinguished is apparently futile.

Coffee table books

I’ve intentionally made my two bottom shelves taller to accommodate my physically largest book collection: my coffee table books. These are often non-fiction books that contain a lot of photos with captions about topics that interest me.

You’ll see books about filmmaking, specific films in particular, fictional characters, and historical events. You’ll see a small collection within this collection dedicated to the British royal family. I got really interested in them around the time of William and Kate’s wedding, and books about them tend to be cheap at used bookstores and library book sales.

The photography books are mostly collected photos of famous events throughout history. In my pre and early internet days, I used to flip through these types of books at the library to teach me about the parts of history that they don’t teach in school.

Also on these shelves you’ll find my The Ultimate Guide superhero series. These are great books to read if you’re just getting into Marvel and DC comics as they cover an individual superhero or team’s entire greatest moments. So, it gives you a complete overview of the hero and helps you decide which of their stories you’d like to read, even if it does spoil a lot of their most famous story plots.

Finally, I have my own little corner dedicated to my self-published books, journals that I’ve been published in, and old college textbooks. You’ll probably also spot my old Girl Scout handbooks from the mid-90s. I’m very sentimental and won’t throw things like this away, even if I don’t plan on completing any Junior Girl Scout badgework any time soon. You’ll also see some outdated reference books that I never open but also can’t bring myself to throw away.

Memoirs and biographies

The second and third shelves from the bottom of my left bookcase hold my memoirs and biographies. I have both hardback and paperback copies, and I try to keep each type of book together.

However, if I have multiple books by one author, I make it a priority to keep those books together, no matter the material of the cover. I like to collect books from certain authors, and organizing it this way will help me to see what I have for them and what I still want to get.

I mostly collect celebrity memoirs. Comedian memoirs are my favorites because they write the way they talk, and they know how to translate their own brand of humor to the page.

On the next shelf up, I keep mostly biographies. Again, movies take center stage in this pile. When people gift me books, they usually like to gift me books about my favorite movies and TV shows. Graphic novels also work for me too. More on that later.

You can also check out my post, How Memoirs Inspire Essay Writing, here for more from me on this genre.

Adult fiction

Moving over to the second shelf from the bottom of my right bookcase, I have adult fiction. I read a ton of adult fiction, but I don’t keep a lot of it. As you can see, the majority is Stephen King which I have organized by release date. I like to collect the original King covers, or at least the covers I like best.

I’m not big on buying multiple copies of the same books just for the covers. If I rebuy a book, it’s because my last copy has been damaged or is falling apart. I will look out for a good cover, but if I see a better one, I’m not going to buy it just because it looks nice. After all, it’s all the same inside.

YA and classics

One shelf is dedicated to YA and classics. YA is usually a big part of readers’ collections that you see online. Fantasy series with black backgrounds, bright colors, and scratchy fonts are big hits with most readers. But I’m not a big fantasy reader. So, my YA shelf is pretty meager, even though I do like to read this genre. Because of this, I’ve paired them up with my classic novel collection.

These books are mostly sorted in size order and cover type. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but if my YA collection ever expands, I’ll probably move them to their own shelf.

I’m also not a big reader of the classics. Most of what I have are old copies of novels and plays I read in school and which we were allowed to keep since the next class would be getting a new edition. I have trouble holding my attention with older language and writing styles. So, what you see here are exceptions to those rules.

Middle grade

As a middle grade author, I’ve made a point of saving my middle grade books, and I’m now on the hunt for other classics that I read as a kid. I don’t feel as guilty adding middle grade books to my TBR pile because I know I’m going to like them, and I can read them fast. So, I tend to grab those over big, thick, adult books in my pile, and they tend to disappear from my TBR pile almost as quickly as they appear.

So, I have an entire shelf dedicated to middle grade classics. These are those books I’ve been hunting down from my childhood. I find them at library sales, in Little Free Libraries, and used bookshops. It’s interesting how some books are better than I remember and some, not so much.

I’m also coming to find that middle grade novels get updated over the years. The language and pop culture references are changed with new editions. For some reason, publishers think kids are only going to read a book if it’s about a kid growing up in their particular era. But I’d rather read them with their original language and references, even if they are outdated or even inappropriate to a modern reader.

One shelf contains middle grade series including The Baby-sitters Club, Goosebumps, and The Boxcar Children. These are three important series in my reading career.

Another shelf is dedicated to my two favorite series: The Little House Series and The Tillerman Cycle. You can read more about these series here: Ranking The Little House Series and Creative Inspirations: The Tillerman Cycle.

Poetry, plays, and more

As a creative writing major, I was forced to buy a lot of poetry, short stories, and plays. And of course, I kept them. I like to flip through them every once in a while, but mostly, they’re there only because of my sentimentality. And you never know when you’ll need them for a reference.

That’s not to say that every book on this shelf is a throw away copy. But if I do run out of room, the first things to go will be books from this shelf.

Picture books

My top right bookcase shelf is dedicated to picture books. Most of these are books from my childhood which, again, I’ve never thrown away. I do see a problem with keeping these on a high shelf as when my niece and nephew come over, they won’t be able to reach them. But for now, they’re fine.

Graphic novels

The entire little shelf to the right of my new bookcases is dedicated to my graphic novel collection. My collection began with just Batman novels. Slowly, it expanded to Marvel and then non-superhero topics, such as horror and memoirs.

Yes, graphic novels are essentially picture books for adults. But there’s no use defending them from those who don’t get it.

I personally don’t get the Manga craze. So, you won’t see any in my collection. But I respect any art that makes people happy. And this particular collection makes me happy.

Prior to getting my new bookcases, I bagged and boarded my graphic novels like priceless artifacts. But I made the decision to unbag them because it made them more accessible to pull from the shelves, and I came to the realization that I’m not a collector; I’m a reader.

These books are mostly bestsellers. They’re never going to have any value. So, just the single issues stayed in plastic to help keep them upright. And everything else is now displayed proudly.

If you want to read more about my love of graphic novels, check out 10 Batman Stories That Should Be Made into Movies,  10 Philosophical Story Elements in the Batman Mythos, and Three Halloween Graphic Novel Recommendations with The Whistling Kettle Fall Tea Pairings.

How do you organize your bookshelves? Do you have any recommendations for decorating my shelves? Leave your answers in the comments below!

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Buy a copy of I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf here, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

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