Lytton Strachey organized his books from Z-A. What fun, I say! I love the peculiar precision of this arrangement, and have adopted its use.
Starting with Zola
Stein-Joyce
Hesse-Dickens
How do you arrange your books?
“In pure literature, the writers of the eighteenth century achieved, indeed, many triumphs; but their great, their peculiar, triumphs were in the domain of thought.”-Lytton Strachey
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 
I love your bookshelves and would spend many hours perusing. I arrange my books by subject for the most part although there are always those which puzzle me for category. I organize by literary novels, natural history, poetry, memoir, autobiography, western history and literature and that is all I can think of for now. I live in two places and the books I need are always in the other place.
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Thanks. These pics are from my Classic Literature section. Like you, I categorize (as well as reverse-alphabetize). I think I have close to 20 or so categories. Maybe more. I will have to count the next time I am upstairs. Very interesting to read what categories you use!
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I forgot art books – I have a lot of those.
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Always art books!
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Mostly by subject but now and then I keep some of my favorite authors together.
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I keep Austen, Plath, Shakespeare, Shaw and Vonnegut together!
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I have no rational organizing system to my books, although I’ve tried many times and many ways to find one that would make sense to an outsider. All my poetry books are together, for example, but then ones that are signed are on a bookshelf of signed books. My collectible books are categorized by author; my reviewed books sit randomly on many shelves. It’s a mess! But my interior geiger counter always helps me find them.
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I have OCD, so my books are very well organized. I cannot help myself. I use specific categories, and they are all reverse-alphabetized. I am thinking of labeling the sections. Then I should be satisfied.
As long as your system works for you, then does it really matter if it makes sense to others?
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I think maybe should I ever have a huge amount of extra time, I’d likely go down the highly organized path with my books. I would like that but, yes, in the meantime, it doesn’t really matter if my messy system makes sense to anyone but me. 🙂
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It only took me a couple of hours, but then I have done this a few times before. 🙂
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I organize mine by topic, but within each topic there’s no particular order, although I tend to group the books by size. Not the most precise library filing system but it seems to work.
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The size thing is interesting! I can see how that would be aesthetically pleasing. As long as you can find your books, that is all that really matters. Mine are also organized by topic (and I use very specific topics), and each topic is reverse-alphabetized. Next, I am labeling each section. 🙂
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What a wonderfully decadent idea!
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I’m another one who arranges according to subject, but also according to height (for practical reasons). I quite like this Z-A method, though.
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I organize both ways-by very specific subjects and reverse-alphabetically. I cannot stop myself from being so precise. The height thing is interesting, though.
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