Looking for a new activity at home? Make yourself happy by organising your books the right way.
Alphabetically, by collection, by genre or theme, even by color, it’s time to take advantage of a calm and quiet summer break to organize your books. A therapeutically stimulating yet peaceful vacation for the mind.
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In a recent article in the Washington Post, Mark Athitakis gave a heartfelt shout-out, “Why bother organizing your books? A messy personal library is proof of life.” The journalist writes “It’s hard for me to remember now the exact moment when my ambition for order died.” He explains how he set out, when his family moved into a new house, to meticulously tidy up his library in the new shelving. “I tidily separated the fiction from the nonfiction, dutifully arranging the fiction alphabetically by author…. Perfect. And then, of course, soon enough, not.”
How many of us, like this writer, have found the perfect trick for organizing our books before finding, distressed and dismayed, that no amount of logic will keep the precious books in place for more than two weeks. So what can we do?
Arranging your books by color
How about ditching alphabetical order and turning to color-based classification? If you’re at all a fan of Marie Kondo — the guru of tidying — you may already be feeling a “spark of joy.” Yes, arranging your books by color is a truly pure visual and intellectual pleasure.
But beware, in this perilous exercise, there are several elements to size up at once, because you have to create your own literary rainbow while matching the height of the edges. Not as easy as it sounds. On Instagram, the trend is a hit. And the result is superb, we must admit.
Organizing your books by book spine poetry
For those who, like the Washington Post writer, are ready to throw in the towel, nothing stops you from playing with book titles to create your own story segments. For example, one such ‘poem’ on Pinterest reads:
“I Live in the Future & Here’s How it Works”
“People”
“Waste and Want”
“Everything”
“In Pursuit of the Unknown.”
While on Instagram hereweeread has put together
“Here We Are”
“Under the Same Sky”
“Night and Day”
“Imagine”
“Everyone’s Welcome”
“So Many Feet”
“Lost and Found”
“Together”
“Welcome”
“What a Wonderful World”
“Pass It On”
Turn your books into flower stands
While we’re at it, why not go for a horizontal solution? A pile of three books to give your Monstera Deliciosa plant some height and in one fell swoop, your two favorite home hobbies (reading and home gardening) combine and take you to the summit of the social networking trends. Who could ask for more?
This article is published via AFP Relaxnews.
