Books

The same way they'd be sorted at the Unseen Library

Funny you should ask, I'm just re-doing mine with new shelves.

The books are sorted by genre, then alphabetically by author, except for series, which are in either publication order or correct series order.

So, for example, The Narnia books, publication order:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
The Last Battle

Yes, yes, "but Lewis' preferred order..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia

"much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than The Magician's Nephew, where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do"—which is nonsensical if one has already read The Magician's Nephew.[26] Other similar textual examples are also cited.[27]"

If you read Magician's Nephew first, you learn things that you should not otherwise know if you go in publication order.

Same with the Doc Smith Lensman books:

Galactic Patrol (1937-1938 / 1950)
Grey Lensman (1939-1940 / 1951)
Second Stage Lensmen (1941-1942 / 1953)
Children of the Lens (1947-1948 / 1954)
Triplanetary (1948)
First Lensman (1950)

The publication dates are decieving because they were originally printed in pulp magazines before being collected as books. As with the Narnia books, reading them chronologically "leaks" the reader information they should not have.

Triplanetary was originally an unrelated story in 1934, it was modified in 1948 to fit the Lensman chronology.

But, OTOH, Stephen King's Dark Tower books are in chronological order:

The Little Sisters of Eluria (1998)
The Gunslinger (1982)
The Drawing of the Three (1987)
The Waste Lands (1991)
Wizard and Glass (1997)
The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)
Wolves of the Calla (2003)
Song of Susannah (2004)
The Dark Tower (2004)

You don't gain or lose anything reading the proper chronology as with Narnia.

Edit: Also tempted by these cool shelf tags I found on Etsy, but I'm pretty sure I can make my own, cheaper:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4369077622/book-tavern-signs-handcrafted-bookshelf

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4376754893/vintage-tavern-sign-bookshelf-divider

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4309270493/personalized-wooden-book-shelf-dividers

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4399636750/book-shelf-dividers-set-book-genre

Genre >Author>Release date. Rather than sorting by alpha this last bit lets me browse the timeline of a writer’s work in context.

I organize crying, that’s how I do it

In the past I used alphabetical order, when I was a book collector, I also used to sort them by publisher and year of publication. All of that is long gone.

I trimmed my collections to... the mere shadow of itself, and now organize them by their importance to me (the dearest are closest to me, easier to pick from either of my two usual reading spots), and by... affinity between books.

I would not want to mix authors and books that can't have an interesting conversation together (even if not always polite). And I like to think it makes good company for Woolf, Proust, Flaubert and Tolstoy to be sitting together when I'm not reading them. Or for Dick, Gibson, Stephenson and Rucker to keep company to one another ;)

I don’t have a lot of nonfiction, so those typically take up one small shelf grouped by content; cookbooks together, science books together, etc. I usually have these separate from my regular bookcase.

I have a lot of fiction, mostly speculative fiction. I don't separate by genre, but because of the shelf height in my bookcase, I organize by size then alphabetically by author’s last name, then by series order. Top shelf is all mass market paperbacks, next two shelves are trade paperbacks and shorter hardcover, bottom shelf is taller hardcovers. I also have books wedged on top of books on each shelf and I need to get another bookshelf because half my books are still in boxes from my last move.

Like most people, I don't have enough place to organize them how I want, which is simply Genre > Author > Alphabetical / Series Release Order.

I try to keep to that, but authors / books are moved around depending on shelf space, trying to have all books by an author in a single shelf. So, if a shelf is 50% full, and next author will take about 75%, it is moved to next free shelf, and another author with 50% or less than 50% space required is moved there. So, there are some J books after S, and things like that.

Also, for most non-fiction and books not in series, inside a single shelf, sort them by size, so they are sorted as large to small. That is more of my wife's thing, but I am used to it now and like them this way.

As for cataloging, they are all cataloged on LibraryThing, which I have found best for cataloging needs. Though I haven't tried anything new in last 5-7 years, so don't know if there are other services out there with better cataloging options. I tried using simple offline files, but I forget the books I already have, and after buying duplicate books twice I decided that having an online service is better for this.

I'm trying to sort them by languages first, then by genres. But I'm terribly at organizing, and not having enough space, many are mixed up. Also, I wish I have the space for more than one real shelf. Half of my books are in boxes.

Like, Sci-Fi in my native language should be in the back roll of the shelf, but some of them are here and there. Non-fictions should be in the front and lower roll of the shelf, but other languages are in boxes, bedside, and desktop shelf, so basically everywhere… And books by one author but in different translations are stored in different places, it's slightly frustrating. Now I thought about it, maybe I shouldn't separate them by languages.