I love books.  But now that I have an e-reader I buy very few hard copies so my real library is diminishing as the library on my e-reader grows.

I no longer have piles of books next to my bed waiting to be read, they are stored on my e-reader which is probably a good thing as I don’t get rid of books which means my storage problem is coming to an end.

The books that I do have though, need  to be sorted so I embarked on this task one rainy afternoon. The perfect weather to spend with my books!  There is something comforting about holding a book in your hands, it’s a feeling you don’t get from a  e-reader.

When my daughter was young, she insisted on displaying her books by size.  Biggest to smallest.  This is, of course, aesthetically pleasing but not very satisfactory when you need to find a special book.   I also know someone who sorts her books by colour!  I found it strange that the books on display always matched her decor so beautifully until I realised that the spines of her books were stiff.  I haven’t the heart to question her on their content as I now firmly believe that she shops for books with a swatch of material to match her lounge colour scheme and hides the battered books she hopefully reads, under her bed or in a cupboard somewhere.

I  keep the same authors’ books next to each other and, although I have most of Charles Dickens’ books on my e-reader, I still cannot resist buying hard copies from secondhand bookshops.  The covers are rather motley, some  are new editions and some are very old.

I organise my non-fiction books according to genre. I have a special space for gardening books and another for recipe books. I keep my travel books in two separate areas – books I have brought on my travels and books about places I still want to see.

Books, books, books, such beautiful things!