Bookshelf organization

My shelves and their new system:

First big shelf: Non-fiction: Canada; Portland; New York; Political; Historical (general followed by chronological); Philosophy; Essays; Literary Bio/History/Criticism; Games; Math; Science; Bicycling; Humor; Memoir.

Second big shelf: Fiction (alpha by author); Fiction anthologies and journals; Travel; Annotated classics; Music; Art; Oprah-style novels I cannot seem to rid myself of.

Third big shelf: Poetry (alpha by author); Poetry anthologies; Poetry journals; Large reference.

White shelf: Mass-market paperbacks; Penguin classics; Oversized books.

Living room shelf: Foreign language books; Small reference books; Non-Penguin classics; Comics.

Kitchen nook shelf: Library books; Cookbooks.

my books are largely in boxes.

at home there's a bookcase of american lit, chronological, since it's nominally what i study. and another bookcase of pre-1900 english lit, somewhat organised. generally i think geographical-chronological is the way to go. but then it kinda shows up how little e.g. south american writing i actually have.

here i have two piles of books on a table to my left of books to take home and read over easter; a floating bookcase on my right of stuff i've read up here / stuff to read before i go back home or throw away / dictionary / some big comics reprints volumes. all this has overspilled to the top of my wardrobe, too.

there's a row of old SF paperbacks on top of my dresser. which also is holding, for some reason, the koran, a complete whitman, four volumes of the marvel comix series 'runaways', flann o'brien's 'at-swim-two-birds', and an old penguin raffles-the-gentleman-thief omnibus.

& that's it i think.

Non-Fiction/Poetry/Drama, one on side (not many of these, so with the DVDs and Games I own.

Then fiction on the other split into read and unread, organised alphabetically by author name.

Generally anyway.

Currently, all the music-related and movie criticism books are in the basement, the majority of the food-related books are in the kitchen and a 3-shelf unit in the dining room, and everything else is in a jumble all over the rest of the house. Three houses ago, we had all the fiction in the dining room, all the poetry in the bedroom, food books in the breakfast nook, languages in 4 shelves under the giant dictionary in the living room, and science and history each had their own 7-foot high shelves in the living room. It's a hopeless mess now.

Organization? Uh, no.
I don't actually have bookshelves though, all my books are just shoved into various closets. Only organization going is having most poetry in one place (there isn't much) and a few series together (Penguin Popular Classics, for instance) and often works by the same author together, as well. It's a pain in the ass to look for specific books, since several closets have a 3x3 or 3x4 stacks of books shoved into them, and I can't always recall in which one the book might reside.
Non-fiction is mostly heaped randomly together with the fiction, too.

It's quite impressive, really. If you visited me, you'd probably not be able to tell that I own any books at all, barring a few dictionaries lying around, and whatever I'm currently reading.

My books are on the floor waiting for their bookshelves. Poor books.

i aim to lay them flat or stand them up straight. ideally.

By size (!), kind of. All the comics collections are together, except for the Lone Wolf and Cubs, which are on top of a bookcase, as are the Everyman classics, and the Lemony Snickets. The hardbacks and trade paperbacks are on one group of shelves, and the remaining paperbacks, A and B formats, are on the rest of the shelves. All of the groups are alphabetical by order.

"alphabetical by order"

?????

Orthor.

Tall thin shelves: fiction in alphabetical order apart from one shelf of M's books (mainly non-fiction) which have no order at all, plus DVDs.

Three-shelf bookcase no 1: cookery/household books on top shelf in no particular order, then poetry alpabetical by author followed by anthologies and reference on the other two shelves.

Three-shelf bookcase no 2: random oversized and non-fiction, library borrowings, books for my MA, and CDs in plastic boxes. I don't like this bookcase, much too messy and unfun.

I mostly group by affinity, just as a library might. Then the conundrum of harmonizing fixed shelf heights and fixed book heights must be addressed. Somehow, I manage to do this.

Poetry gets four shelves. Greek and Roman classics get two. Medieval and Renaissance classics get one shelf. Humor gets one shelf. Science and philosophy get one shelf. After that, it gets strange.

My books are divided into three categories. Books I've read but am keeping, books I've read that are going back to the shop, and books I haven't read yet.

These categories exist largely in my mind. To the casual observer, there are just books. I too am guilty of just shoving them onto spare shelves in presses and wardrobes. I have some in drawers and some on the floor under my bed and some on shelves. I am highly organised, oh yes.

There's little order in my madness and we're looking to move shortly, so it will all change. Travel literature gets its own bookcase and so do travel guides and cook books. Paperback fiction is roughly A-Z, hardbacks are all over the place. I didn't realise we had a poetry section until the other weekend when we were trying to find something suitable for my sister's wedding. It's on the bottom shelf of the middle bookcase in the lounge, behind the table, near the Magic 8 ball. Should you call round.

Girlfriend works for a publisher of coffee table style books, so loads of wine titles and Scandinavian Design etc. Richard Brautigan gets his own section, because he is the king.

Oh yes, forgot the separate 'unread books' case on the landing.
Accentmonkey, check your email.

Two bookcases: Fiction and Literature
One short bookcase: Graphic novels
One bookcase: Non-Fiction (two shelves), Sci-Fi/Fantasy (one shelf) Crafts (one shelf)
One short bookcase: Young Adult
One bookcase: Misc. mass market (two shelves), Religion (one shelf), Misc. school textbooks (two shelves)

All of it in it's own room, which I call my library. I try to copy Amazon/Borders organization, but to some extent I put certain books together as a personal joke (I shelved "Sex and the Perfect Lover" next to "Why Men Hate Women").

I know I have too many books. I haven't read them all. I like collecting them. I lend them out and occationally don't get them back. That's fine, I just let getting people to read.