I'm done organizing my fiction books, though the non-fiction still needs taking care of. I've pulled a few already-reads to get rid of. And there are others that I could get rid of if I were moving, without too much heartache--mostly from the cheap book sales Cher and I used to go to.
The cataloging is slow-going. The genres are done, I'm about halfway through the general fiction, and there are still the plays and poetry to do. Right now the tally is at 603 books.
Part of the fun of organizing books is figuring out how to sort them, This Time. That's why this is my favourite scene in High Fidelity:
Last time I went by genre and alphabetical. This time I went by genre and then mood--and if there's still a lot, then alphabetical. So I separated Fantasy from Sci Fi, cause Fernando's in a Fantasy mood right now. And in Sci Fi I separated out the old-timer authors who I'm less interested in, and shoved them at the back. And I made a separate pile for humorous authors.
In Romance (where I put some chick lit or historical fiction too) I separated historical from contemporary.
Mystery is mixed with horror and thriller, and basically alphabetical. My Agatha Christies are separate, and they 're by detective.
General Fiction I decided to divide by country... not the country of the author, but where the book mostly takes place. Cause that's often how my mood works. For example, Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy is in "Eastern & Southern" lit, because it takes place in India, and is very India-focused. But his A Suitable Music takes place in England (and Venice?) so it's with the British lit. On the other hand, the book about the Muslim Indian woman who moves to Paris and ditches her arranged-fiancé is with "Eastern/Southern" and not with "European & Other" because the issues she faces tie back to her country of origin. So if I ever get the chance to teach a course on Developing Areas, I could draw on the "Eastern/Southern" books.
And then there's a separate pile for French language, whether it's a play, poetry, etc. because I have to be in a different mood to read French--ready to put out more effort.
The division between "genre" and "general" is of course arbitrary... but's it's my collection, so I'm allowed to be arbitrary.
