Since it appears everyone is sharing their unedited bookshelves, I thought I’d participate. Remember when I actually organized all of my books before? I would say that flew out the window pretty much immediately after it happened. I do have a system to my madness, so let me give you a tour of my bookshelves. They are completely unedited and thus a disaster. And some of these photos leave something to be desired.

This is the living room book case, and this is where new books I pick up or receive end up. There are library books shoved among ARCs shoved among finished books. There are also a ton of other non-book things on the shelf. I will say this — I’m mostly a neat person, and this is the only part of my house as messy as this. On the left on the floor, you can see audiobooks, too. Here are is a close up of the middle shelves of this case:

To the right of this book case, a pile of books. Same story: they’re ones I haven’t read yet, just came into the house, or I have other action to take. That box also has books in it. 

So the room behind the living room is the guest room are four boxes of books. They’re all older, antique, maybe-but-probably-not rare books that my husband’s parents shipped to us when they moved. In January. Yep, those boxes are still doing a great job holding those books:

My bedroom has become the official landing place for all of the committee-received books. I don’t want to do a closeup for a number of reasons, but if you were wondering what sort of commitment being on a selection committee is, here’s an idea of the staggering amount of material received: 

There’s a small pile in my office/library room, and these are books I picked up at ALA that I’ve been slowly working through: 

Then there’s a pile and a box in the same room. Same story: working through these books, figuring out what to read, what to review, and what to pass on. 

I’m not a huge book purchaser. If I’m going to buy a book, it’ll be something I plan on rereading or revisiting or lending out personally. A number of the books on these shelves have been in my life for a long time, and some of them are galleys of books I still need to do something with (read or pass on). Let’s start with the adult books:

I love Bill Bryson, Haruki Murakami, Franz Kafka, along with my maybe not-so-secret loves of Don DeLillo and Douglas Coupland. My favorite book in the world — Ann Patchett’s The Magician’s Assistant — sits on these shelves, as does my favorite collection of short stories, Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. The very bottom shelf on the right hand side are my poetry collections. I used to be so into that. Maybe someday I’ll return. And yes, I own Snooki’s book. I couldn’t even get through it. I got it on sale, for what it’s worth. 

This is the middle set of stacks in my library/office. The top shelf are mass markets. Judge away, but I keep that copy of Atlas Shrugged there because I got through the damn book.

The shelf below — starting with Deadly and ending with The Girl of Fire and Thorns — are all my signed books. Some are finished copies and some are ARCs. It’s one of my favorite shelves. 

Just above the mass markets on the top of that book case are my comics. I don’t own too many. 

The very bottom of that book case are my series books. Obviously, there are some holes.

The next book case in the library/office are my YA books. This is a mix of finished, must-keep copies of books nearer the top and mostly ARCs I still need to read or pass along lower down. 

The top shelf are a combination of my favorite YA books and authors, along with books I really liked and a couple of books I still need to read. And on the far right are some classic Babysitter’s Club titles.

And there are my shelves unedited. Be kind. I think maybe the titles on my shelves and the way I keep them around the house share way more about me than I would share otherwise.