Sort this book

BEHOLD!

“By author, by color, by genre, or by Want to Read versus Read. How are your bookshelves currently organized?” – @Goodreads on Twitter

I, of course, have spent considerable time organizing and thinking about how to organize my books, just like everyone – or at least everyone with books; people without books can’t, by definition, organize their books, though they can organize other things: brooms, springform pans, political uprisings. But me, it’s all about books.

And organizing books, as I’ve said. It defines me as a person. Sometimes I’ll buy a book just so I can organize it, knowing full well that I will never read it, but feeling the deep, penetrating satisfaction of finding a home for said book on a shelf between Donna Tart’s The Goldfinch and Goldilocks and the Three Birds, if, of course, my books are organized by titles with bird species in them and the book in question is Goldfish Are Nothing Like Eagles by Jonathan Franzepan.

But how prosaic, the alphabetical method! Alphabetically is the sorting method of every Dick, Harry and Tom and does nothing to capture the idiosyncrasies of you, your bookshelves and the concerted efforts of major publishing houses and their lavishly paid publicists.

When I first began organizing my books, I chose the much-cherished Cherished Method, sorting my books from most to least favourite. Most favourite was Read It to Me Over and Over, Mommy! and least favourite was My Big Book of Gangrene. I was five, and those were my only two books, so the choice was relatively easy, though never underestimate the drama of a good gangrene anecdote!

As I accumulated more books from dear aunties, jumble sales and people who threw books at me, it became more problematic organizing my collection by how beloved they were. There is simply no way to determine one’s preference between, say, The Hardy Boys and the Curious Cushion Stain and Are You There, God? Because It’s Awfully Quiet in There.

But even at the tender age of 32, I knew that it was paramount to find a method of organizing my books, which would lead to purpose in my life, which would lead to asking strangers, “Hey, want to hear about how I organize my books?”

Fine, I’ll tell you.

In a fit of hyper-structuralism brought on by accidentally ingesting a New York Times Sunday crossword, I at first organized my bookshelves from thinnest to thickest, starting with The Collected Love Songs of Richard Nixon and ending with Infinite Jest II: Here Come More Footnotes!

But soon this disgusted me, like a full-colour photo of a frost-bitten foot. In a fit of passion or possibly indigestion, I wildly tore all the books from my shelves onto the floor!

After apologizing to the neighbours in the apartment below, I set about with a new organizing method (the Pile of Books on the Floor Method immediately proving unsatisfying and difficult to navigate).

For a while, I found spiritual meaning in organizing my books by the cuteness of the author’s jacket photo, but over time I became disillusioned, particularly when I realized that Bill Bryson remained among the pantheon of literary cutie pies solely because his photo had not changed in 27 years. What next? Those authors holding their head up with their fist aren’t actually fatigued?

I found solace in sorting my books by colour, not in the order of the spectrum but inserted in the shelves in such a way that, if you stood back and squinted and really used your imagination, the spines looked exactly like Dolly Parton receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. Or possibly a topographic map of the Soviet Union.

It was pleasing to the eye, despite the accompanying dizzy spells, yet I still found myself not entirely fulfilled in any real book-organizing sense. Thus, over a period of 78 sleepless hours, I sorted the books on my shelves according to their sales price (used) on Amazon. I also ordered the box set of “Hogan’s Heroes” 17 times during this period, though I have no recollection of doing so.

And then, an epiphany: who am I sorting these books for? For me? No. I keep my books on display for others! To impress friends and trick-or-treaters with how many books I have acquired (except the James Patterson novels; those just regularly appear on their own) and consequently how highly enlightened I am, how spiritual, how practically I fill the empty void of my life!

It doesn’t matter how my books are organized but where! Inspired, I tore out my bookshelves and rebuilt them… outside my house! Behold, ye masses, my books!

Also: please stop stealing my books. Thank you.