My paperback romances are all in author alphabetical order, with series/trilogies together and in order, which makes it easy when I want a certain book in that particularly overstuffed bookshelf (double stacked, so hard to find). My non-romance fiction is organized by genre, and authors with multiple titles are grouped together, 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).

Mine used to be.

Now, books are Where There Is Room.

The exceptions are: most Pratchett is together; most Gaiman is together; TPBs have their own bookshelf, loosely arranged by area of the DCU and/or other publisher/series (the Rucka novel of No Man's Land goes with the Batbooks, and the Rucka Queen and Country novels go in the Queen and Country section), with Alan Moore's works sharing the shelf with the Gaiman, and books on critical readings of comics filling in the remaining blanks.

My books get shelved by author, either alphabetically by title or in chronological order if it's a progressive series.

Then life and reading and book purchasing happens. And it all devolves into chaos.

Eventually I get snowed in or move or something and reorganize everything all over again.

Hee. I go alpha by author & then chronologically regardless of its progressive nature or lack thereof. For fiction. By topic for non-fiction. Although, I have a ton of books I bought from library cast-off sales, so I keep threatening to go Dewey.

But this move, the SO set up the shelves for me, and I so deeply appreciate his work that I have yet to change his ordering. But I have to at some point, because he left no room for expansion. And I must have expansion.

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

Heh. My Baring-Gould is in kind of sad shape. But I got it cheap at some huge used book sale in Chicago, so it's not my fault. Well, not entirely.

Hey, you might know -- is the old HBO production of "Sherlock Holmes" on DVD anywhere? I search for it every so often, but I don't have the patience to dig through 50 pages of results.

I had comics separated until the last reorganization, but then I merged them in with everything else because that was leading to all kinds of silliness, too.

I covet these shelves. They're narrow and they're modular and they're expensive, naturally, but I want them so much. So much!

[link]

These are a nice alternative, Strega.

Emmett's mom has the ones Aimée linked to -- I've never liked Ikea much before, but that unit is incredibly sturdy and holds her metric assload of books (and photos and other tchotchkes) very nicely.

I'm still in love with Monstro, though.

You can have it.

The man comes with, though.

Hmmm. The apartment's kind of crowded, but another pair of hands to help with diaper-changing would be nice. Think he'd be willing to sleep in a pup tent in the backyard? We'll give him extra blankets and a bottle of booze to keep him warm.

I mainly order by topic, then author. But I have 3 cases I haven't read (we're talking 150+ books, people.I WANT to read them. Just have to catch the mood.) I got behind, those are haphazard. When I catch up, I'll likely reshelve. ( when in the zone, I'm pretty much 1 book/day + whatever book I'm reading over the week.)

The romance novels? I'm not talking about the bags and bags and bags I need to take to Goodwill or the used book store.

Oh, thanks for the tip! But I think that's actually deeper than the bookcases I have now -- I should have been more clear; the narrowness is a big part of the appeal with the Smartshelves, because I'm basically lining two walls of a rather small room with them.