My shelves are arranged in a mostly logical fashion. My first couple of bookshelves hold fiction, which is organized by the author’s last name. Watership Down, therefore, is the first book on my fiction shelves.
After fiction, the next bookcase houses collections. It includes some fiction – short story collections, plays, and fiction series. It also includes poetry, essay collections, and letters.
The nonfiction case is organized by general topic. It’s not Dewey Decimal specific, but it’s pretty close. It’s also outgrowing its allotted area, so it may be time to start shopping for more bookshelves (YAY).
The last bookcase holds food books. Their arrangement is probably the most practical of the categories. On the top shelves are foodie fiction and memoir. In order to land on these shelves and not on the fiction or nonfiction shelves, they must contain at least one recipe, because this bookcase is right outside my kitchen. Until I move again, there will probably come a time when the top two shelves have to move to the library, as there’s only room for the one bookcase on that wall.
The bottom shelves hold cookbooks, organized somewhat by category, but mostly just by size. Smaller tomes go on higher shelves and larger ones (like the giant collection from Gourmet pictured above) go on the bottom. Because physics. And, to a lesser degree, because it just looks better.
What’s first and last on your bookshelves? How do you arrange them?
M. Suzanne Terry 
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