We go together, because opposites attract
If I were a modern, up-to-the-minute type I might say that I spent Sunday de-junking my life. However, I'm not, so I'll say I was having a bit of a clear-out. As usual, the six bags of stuff to go charity shopwards do not correspond to six bags worth of space in my room.
While attempting to weed things from my bookshelves, I was amused by the incongruities in my collection.
My books aren't alphabetised, or subjectised, or anything. Although my CDs are regimented by alphabet, I've never had much trouble remembering where in the unordered shelves a book is. CDs are uniform; books are delightfully varigated in their shape and size.
So, my books are mostly ordered by height, for convenience of fitting onto shelves. They're also slightly ordered by time of acquisition (or, more accurately, by availablility of space at time of acquisition). Series are, in general, littered across shelves in several rooms (except for my Lindsey Davies books which, having been loaned en masse to someone last summer, are slightly surprised to find themselves all in one place.
As a result of this non-order I do have books which you can almost see attempting to distance themselves from the tomes on either side. "Nothing to do with me", says a volume of parallel texts of different translations of the Apocrypha, edging away from a first year maths text book titled Sets, Functions and Logic.
My favourite, though, is the jaunty The Phantom Tollboth snuggling up to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man.
Of course, an alphabetic approach wouldn't necessarily prevent unlikely books sharing shelf space. What's your most incongruous bookshelf pairing ?
While attempting to weed things from my bookshelves, I was amused by the incongruities in my collection.
My books aren't alphabetised, or subjectised, or anything. Although my CDs are regimented by alphabet, I've never had much trouble remembering where in the unordered shelves a book is. CDs are uniform; books are delightfully varigated in their shape and size.
So, my books are mostly ordered by height, for convenience of fitting onto shelves. They're also slightly ordered by time of acquisition (or, more accurately, by availablility of space at time of acquisition). Series are, in general, littered across shelves in several rooms (except for my Lindsey Davies books which, having been loaned en masse to someone last summer, are slightly surprised to find themselves all in one place.
As a result of this non-order I do have books which you can almost see attempting to distance themselves from the tomes on either side. "Nothing to do with me", says a volume of parallel texts of different translations of the Apocrypha, edging away from a first year maths text book titled Sets, Functions and Logic.
My favourite, though, is the jaunty The Phantom Tollboth snuggling up to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man.
Of course, an alphabetic approach wouldn't necessarily prevent unlikely books sharing shelf space. What's your most incongruous bookshelf pairing ?