Skip to main content

On the Arrangement of Books and the Impossibilities of To-do Lists

Hello Lovelies!

I made a trip to my local public library today. It was lovely. But it got me thinking about the various ways to arrange books.

At my house, I have my books arranged by read/ to-read then by color. It works for me because I'm a fairly visual person so I remember what covers I have for books. And I have them separated by read / to-read so that I can see the ones I need to-read. It's an impetus to get me to read the books I own.

My roommate, on the other hand, prefers to keep her books separated by subject. She would love to have them alphabetically after that, but with our shelving situation at the moment, she hasn't been able to do that.

At work, we keep our books separated into genres than alphabetically by author's last name.

At the library, the books are simply alphabetical by author's last name.

So why did I want to write about this? Because I was thinking when I was at the library about all the books people miss out on simply because they believe they like a certain kind of genre. I'm not going to say that they don't. But I can't even say how many books I've picked up because I noticed the cover or spine art at the library that I didn't know a thing about and ended up loving. I tend to prefer Fantasy novels, but if I only ever looked in a fantasy section, that's all I'd ever read. Of course it'd be the only thing I liked. But if I open myself up to other genres, I find favorite books based on the stories and the writing instead of the "genre".

The impossibilities of to-do lists frustrates me. I hate to-do lists at the same time that I love them. Without them, my life would be a mess. I get obsessive with planners when I'm in classes. But I also hate the necessity of them. I wish I could read what I want to read when I want to read it. But like right now, I need to read Orange is the New Black for my book club on Wednesday night, and I also need to read Mansfield Park for a scholarship essay that's due on the 15th. And I want to read The Elite since The One comes out on Tuesday. And on and on and on. There's always more books to read, and to-do lists make me focus on one above the other and I don't particularly like that.

Anyway. I hope your lives are going swell, lovelies. Let me know how you arrange your books in the comments!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Blarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hello lovelies. I'm feeling super overwhelmed by life since I'm doing Camp Nanowrimo and trying to move and find a place to live 2600 miles away. So that's my excuse for missing last week. But now you get two weeks in a row. So this week's theme (hosted as always by The Broke and the Bookish ) is... Top Ten Favorite Movies   (And I picked Scary Movies) I have a secret. Or I guess I had a secret. And that secret is that I love  scary movies. Like anything that plays on gross special effects or melting walls or sudden appearances--I'm totally down for it. (This has only back fired on me once--when I had a panic attack watching Saw 2--I don't wanna talk about it...) So in no particular order, movies that really impressed me with their scare factors: 1. Thir13een Ghosts -- there's this scene with a glass door that is ingrained in my brain.  2. Haunting in Conneticut -- aw man, this movie is sooo good. I actu

Why Should I Trust You?

Hello Lovelies!! It's my finals week, so I'm going to make this one quick.  This week's Top Ten Tuesday (by the Broke and the Bookish ) allows us to fill in the blank! So I will be bringing you... The Top Ten Books with Characters Who are Unreliable Narrators (AKA BIG OL' LIARS). I love unreliable narrators because you never know if they're actually being unreliable or not. Occasionally they tell the truth, but occasionally they lie. So here we go... 1. Nothing by Janne Teller 2. Liar by Justine Larbalestier 3. Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman 4. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta 5. Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout 6. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein 7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 8. The Princess Bride by William Goldman 9. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 10. I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson Many of these books feature the unreliable characters as side characters and not main charac

More Diversity in Your Book Diet

Hello Lovelies! As usual Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by the lovely people over at The Broke and the Bookish . Today's topic is Top Ten Books for People Who Like X, and I'm going to go with... Top Ten Books for People Who Like Diversity Thanks to the efforts of groups like We Need Diverse Books, diversity is having a resurgence in young adult and children's books. For the last couple years, I have been trying to read more books with diverse characters or by diverse authors. (Diverse in this respect includes race, sexuality, gender, and disability). I haven't endeavored to challenge myself to only read a certain type of book i.e. only those by women of color or anything that isn't by a white heterosexual male, but I try to be extra aware of the characters and ask myself if they actually are white (sometimes the text doesn't say it, sometimes people just assume it!) and if being white is necessary for the character or not.  But here are my top t