Hey, everyone! A few days ago, I tweeted a poll asking if any of you readers would like to see a bookshelf tour post from me, and all four of the votes I got were for yes, so here I am with my bookshelf tour!
This was a perfect time to do one of these, anyway, because I actually just finished reorganizing my bookshelves after last week’s haiku challenge post (if you haven’t seen that, you can click here to read it). So my bookshelves are all nice and orderly and I don’t feel too bad about showing them on the Internet.
Anyway, we have a lot of shelves to get through, so let’s just get started!
Alphabetical Shelves
There are four main shelves in my room where I keep books. The first two are where I keep most of my books, and these two shelves are organized in alphabetical order by the author’s last name (more or less—you’ll see there are a couple of places where I didn’t quite follow this rule). If I own more than one book by the same author, I keep series together and I shelve them by series order, but that’s really it. I don’t separate my read and unread books, and I don’t organize by genre.
Anyway, here’s a picture of the first set of shelves:
These shelves contain the books whose author’s names start with A through the first half of M.
Now, zooming in on the top shelf:
The books here are, in order from left to right:
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott • Because You Love to Hate Me edited by Ameriie • The Search volumes 1-3 and The Promise volumes 1-3 from the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics • The Memory Book by Lara Avery • The Cruel Prince by Holly Black • Three Dark Crowns, One Dark Throne,and Five Dark Fates, all by Kendare Blake • The Princess Plot and The Princess Trap, bothby Kirsten Boie • Ariel by Steven R. Boyett • The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken • My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares • The Chaos of Standing Still by Jessica Brody • a bind-up of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë • Undertow by Michael Buckley • A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Shelf #2:
Here, again in order from left to right, we have:
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card • The Girl in Between by Sarah Carroll • Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore • Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman • The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani • The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo • To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline • Artemis Fowl and Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex, both by Eoin Colfer • The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, all by Suzanne Collins • Invisibility by Andrea Cremer • Txting by David Crystal • Hurry Home, Candy by Meindert DeJong • The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz • Entwined by Heather Dixon • We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal • Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Shelf #3:
In order from left to right:
Sapphique by Catherine Fisher (sequel to Incarceron) • The Gender Game by Bella Forrest • The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon • Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath, all by Cornelia Funke • Caraval and Finale, both by Stephanie Garber • The Resolutions by Mia García • Reign the Earth by A. C. Gaughen • Eon by Alison Goodman • Found, Sent, Sabotaged, Torn, Caught, and Revealed, all by Margaret Peterson Haddix • Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Shelf #4:
From left to right:
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee • Goodbye, Paris by Anstey Harris • Legacy of Kings and Empire of Dust, both by Eleanor Herman • The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin • Illuminae, Gemina, and Obsidio, all by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff • Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff • The Bugles Are Silent by John R. Knaggs • Savvy by Ingrid Law • The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence by Stan Lee, Stuart Moore, and Andie Tong • The Two Princess of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine • Every Day by David Levithan • Legend and Prodigy by Marie Lu
Shelf #5:
From left to right:
Champion by Marie Lu (sequel to Legend and Prodigy) • Rebel by Marie Lu • The Young Elites, The Rose Society, and The Midnight Star, all by Marie Lu • Warcross by Marie Lu • The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu • 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass • Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass • Save the Date by Morgan Matson • The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell • Fairest, Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter, and Stars Above, all by Marissa Meyer • Heartless by Marissa Meyer
That’s it for that shelf! You may have noticed that I have some authors/series split up onto different shelves, and yes, that does bother me a little, but they’re still close enough together that it doesn’t bug me too much.
Moving on to my next shelf, which contains the authors with last names from Me to Z, here’s the shot of the whole thing:
Now zooming in on the top shelf:
From left to right:
Renegades by Marissa Meyer • Wires and Nerve vol. 1by Marissa Meyer • Hawaii by James A. Michener • Cursed, illustrated by Frank Miller and written by Thomas Wheeler • Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia • The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes • Instructions for a Secondhand Heart by Tasmyn Murray • The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson • The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North • Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins • Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston • Again, but Better by Christine Riccio • Black City by Elizabeth Richards • The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian, all by Rick Riordan
Shelf #2:
In case it isn’t obvious, this is pretty much entirely made up of Rick Riordan books. From left to right:
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Ultimate Guide and The Demigod Files both by Rick Riordan • Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods by Rick Riordan, illustrated by John Rocco • The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and The Serpent’s Shadow, all by Rick Riordan • Demigods & Magicians and The Kane Chronicles Survival Guide by Rick Riordan• The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades, The Blood of Olympus, and The Demigod Diaries all by Rick Riordan • The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan • The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss • The Enchantress by Michael Scott • Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Shelf #3 (or, technically, mini-shelves 3 and 4):
From left to right:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick • The Marvels by Brian Selznick • Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd • Scythe and Thunderhead both by Neal Shusterman • Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo, Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret, Leven Thumps and the Eyes of Want, Leven Thumps and the Ruins of Alder all by Obert Skye • Pillage by Obert Skye • The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel • Little Do We Know by Tamara Ireland Stone • An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir • Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Shelf #4 (or mini-shelves 5 and 6):
From left to right:
The Lord of the Rings, one-volume edition and The Hobbit both by J. R. R. Tolkien • Enchantée by Gita Trelease • The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner • The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil • Artemis by Andy Weir • Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld • The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White • Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder • Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon • The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon • The Girl King by Mimi Yu • Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia • What’s Left of Me, Once We Were, and Echoes of Us all by Kat Zhang • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
That’s it for my main shelves!
Sanderson Shelf
Now let’s move over to my Brandon Sanderson shelf—because yes, I do have a special area where I keep all my Brandon Sanderson books, separate from the others. What can I say, he’s my favorite author.
Here’s the wide shot of the whole thing (ignore the video games in the bottom right cubbyhole):
This shelf is organized by cosmere books and non-cosmere books, and within that, I’ve grouped series together. The top-right quadrant is all of the non-cosmere books, while the other two are cosmere. (In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, the cosmere is the connected universe that a lot of Brandon’s books are set in.)
And now, zooming in on the top row, we have:
I’m not going to name the author for these because, as I said, these are all by Brandon Sanderson, but from left to right, as usual:
Skyward and Starsight • Steelheart and Calamity • Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds • A Memory of Light (this is a Wheel of Time book, and so is co-authored by Robert Jordan and Brandon) • The Rithmatist • Elantris • Mistborn (also known as The Final Empire), The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages • The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and The Brands of Mourning
The bottom row:
The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Oathbringer • Arcanum Unbounded
Miscellaneous Shelves
We’ve made it, finally, to the last shelf. This is the shelf that’s right next to my desk, so you’ll notice that the books on this shelf are more non-fiction/textbooks/reference books. Really, this shelf is kind of the catch-all shelf for books that didn’t fit elsewhere. Still, there is kind of an organizational strategy here, though it’s a little chaotic. I’ll explain that in more detail once I start talking about the individual shelves.
So let’s get started with the top shelf, shall we?
Here, you’ll see I have some Harry Potter books that I probably should have put on one of my other shelves, but I just decided to leave them here because there was room, and as you saw, my other shelves are pretty jam-packed with books. After that, I have a fun coffee table book and, next to that, two notebooks which were my first two bullet journals (I only used the spiral-bound one for about a month before I started with the Scribbles that Matter, but it counts). Then after that, we have books/textbooks I used for school.
This might be kind of weird, but for these, I decided to organize them by what class I read them for, starting with books I read for high school and moving through each successive college semester until we get to the books I’m using for the classes I’m currently taking (those are on the next shelf down). I thought it was kind of a cool way of doing it, so I can look at my shelves and remember those classes later on.
With that being said, this is not all of the books I’ve ever read for a class. I’ve gotten rid of some, or they were rentals and I had to return them, or I still have them and I just didn’t bother putting them on the shelf—but this is a good amount of them.
Anyway, that was a really long explanation. Here’s the top row:
From left to right:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows all by J. K. Rowling • Rhett and Link’s Book of Mythicality by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal • my 2019 bullet journals • Animal Farm by George Orwell (I don’t know why I have two copies) • The Awakening by Kate Chopin • 101 French Idioms by Jean-Marie Cassagne, illustrated by Luc Nisset • Laughing Without an Accent by Firoozeh Dumas • Listen, eighth edition, by Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson • Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, fourth edition, by Janet Burroway • Une si longue letter by Mariama Bâ • Le Château de ma mère by Marcel Pagnol • Literature: A Portable Anthology, third edition, edited by Gardner, Lawn, Ridl, and Schakel • The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz • God’s Bits of Wood by Sembène Ousmane • When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head • David’s Story by Zoë Wicomb • Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga • The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani • Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami • Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler • Truth Doesn’t Have a Side by Dr. Bennet Omalu
Shelf #2:
Here we have more of the books I read for class, and then some books in foreign languages that I bought to read in my own time to help myself get better at reading in that language (most of them are in French).
From left to right:
Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran by Albin Michel • Vendredi ou la vie sauvage by Michel Tournier • Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani • Persepolis 3 by Marjane Satrapi • Mad Man’s Drum by Lynd Ward • Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki • Incognegro : A Graphic Mystery by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece • The Complete MAUS by Art Spiegelman • a collection of short stories by Marcel Aymé • La Princesse de Clèves by Madame de Lafayette • Le Tartuffe. Dom Juan. Le Misanthrope by Molière, edited by Georges Couton • Phèdre by Jean Racine • Propraganda & Persuasion, seventh edition,by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell • Persuasion and Social Movements, sixth edition, by Charles J. Stewart, Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. • Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas • Les fiancés de l’hiver by Christelle Dabos • Le Dernier Olympien by Rick Riordan (translated from English by Mona de Pracontal) • The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye (translated from English by Friederike Levin) • Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (translated from English by Angela Ragusa) • Cinder by Marissa Meyer (translated from English by Guillaume Fournier) • Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales • Nightstand Reader for Kids • several copies of the Bible
And that’s it! I do have another shelf below that one, but all that’s on there are some dictionaries, coloring books, old yearbooks, and other random books that I don’t think you need to hear about in great detail.
Let’s move on to the final tally.
How Many Books Do I Have?
When I count up all my books (including a few that aren’t mentioned in this because they’re not on my shelves), I have a total of…. Drumroll please…
235 Books!
This post is already way too long, so I’m going to leave it there, but keep your eyes peeled if you’re into stats, because I’m planning on writing a post to talk about super fun things like how many books I have from different genres and unread vs read percentages (probably including graphs, because I’m a nerd). That post will probably take even longer to put together than this one did, and I haven’t started working on it yet, so I have no idea when it will go up.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me! I hope you enjoyed!
I’ll see you next time!
-Ariel