My paperback romances are all in author alphabetical order, with series/trilogies together and in order,in a series of stacks on the floor or under the bed which makes it easy a crapshoot when I want a certain book in that particularly overstuffedstacked bookshelf floor(double stacked, so hard to find). My non-romance fiction is organized by genre, and authors with multiple titles are grouped together, mostly on various bookshelves but other than that, it's a bit jumbled. All my nonfiction (other than the oversized titles, which are grouped together on the bottom shelf) is organized by subject matter, and all my history is subdivided (military history is grouped in chronological order by war, European history is together, as is medieval history) also wedged on those shelves. Mostly.

my bookshelves are scary fricking messes. Like my brain.

Hee, brenda!!!

I can't imagine what my apartment would look like if I hadn't weeded out a third of my collection before I moved. Well, more overtaken by books than it is now, I guess. My mom was impressed with how clean and well-organized my apartment was when she visited for the first time last week, and I told her to be sure to take pictures of my living room and dining room bookshelves and show them to my stepsister, who had been impressed with Mom's book collection, which is about 1/10th the size of mine.

Most of the books are in the garage. I started to organize them, then Hubby started to "help." Some of the books are still in the storage shed, some are on shelves in the living room, some are in the back bedroom, some are . . .

I need more shelves. I need one of those smut libraries to keep things in.

Wait--so those of you who shelve chronologically or alphabetically within an author will break up series to fit that pattern?

DH would like all the books to stand straight - no lying down on the job. There issn't room, I must stack. so he tried to question my georgette heyers. I sicked Deb on him.

ita, good point. I keep series together, regardless of date of release.

And thinking about it more, it's usually just the authors who don't write in trilogies, etc that get put in chrono order by release. If I tried plain chrono with Nora Roberts, I'd never find a damn thing.

I shelve most things by author. Except for when I don't. Like, sometimes related non-fiction goes with the fiction it's about (so the the LoEN annotations are with the Alan Moore stuff). And also except the Sherlockian books, which I just put on their own shelf because it seems silly to have it all scattered under each author, and equally silly to put it all with Doyle. Oh, and then books of essays and stuff like that are mixed in, also by author, because am I going to put Last Chance to See across the room from Dirk Gently? And what do I do with Ellison? That leaves, let's see, anthologies and collections with multiple authors, and some assorted nonfiction & reference books. Which in theory is collected together on a separate bookcase in some kind of coherent system, but in actuality is in a large pile on the sofa because that's when I got sick of dealing with it last time I tried to put my books in order.

As a librarian, I shelve everything at home by size because it's the most efficient method and shelf space is limited in my small apartment.

And also except the Sherlockian books, which I just put on their own shelf because it seems silly to have it all scattered under each author, and equally silly to put it all with Doyle.

My sister in Sherlockiana! Nothing makes me happer than to have my two-volume Annotated Holmes next to the books written by modern authors.