My Goodreads Shelves

 You know what? Organizing shelves is really hard.

There are so many different ways to do it. You can shelve your books by color, by title, by series title, by author, by genre, by size, by publication year, by the last year read... You get the picture.

Frankly this is difficult enough with physical bookshelves, trying to figure out how to shelve things digitally? Fuhgeddaboudit!!

Cause I'm extra, let's talk about my (currently) 26 made up Goodreads shelves!

The Basic Shelves

You know the basic shelves right? Read, To Read, Currently Reading, DNF. 3 out of the 4 of them you have to have. You've either read the book, are reading the book, or want to read the book. DNF is an add on that you don't need within Goodreads, but most readers I've seen keep it. At the very least it's a record of books you want to remind yourself to never try again.

These four shelves are not part of the 26 shelves mentioned before the jump. But I want to stress that I have a problem with hitting "Want to Read" on books. To the tune of 810 books. Currently. That number is even pared down due to deciding to not continue with some series, removing series sequels where I haven't even read the first book yet and not sure I will like them, and walking away from some problematic authors that I never, ever want to read period. (Looking at you, JKR.) It used to be over 1,200 books.

Types of Made Up Shelves

My Made Up Shelves have gone through several iterations. I'm ADHD. This happens in my life a lot. But I think I've finally found something I can stick with. At this time, very rarely does a book exist on just a single digital shelf. Most books live on a minimum of 2 shelves, one Basic and at least one Made Up.

Read Shelves

First we have my Read Shelves. These are the (currently) 640 books that I have already read. Definitely not an accurate count, but the list I know for a fact I have read since tracking such things or the ones I remember reading from before I started tracking such things.

Dated Shelves: 2014-2022
I have started to add my read books into shelves that are dated. "I read these books in 2016, these in 2017, these in 2018", and so on, with the one for 2022 (or the current year) stickied to the top of my bookshelves list. 

"Oh! You would love this book; right up your alley! Let's see, I read that when Event A was happening in my life or around the time that I was working for Company G, and when I held Position M, so that would have been Year S or T." See how I've narrowed my search down? I also have a shelf for PopSugar's challenge so I can see how I'm doing on it. It's the first year I've done their challenge, so we'll see how far I get. That one is also stickied.

This is the simplest way to sort the books so I can find a specific title to recommend someone. I don't know if I'll go back into 2013 and earlier. It really depends if I can make it through my list of read books and put timeframes to them all... May not be worth the undertaking.

Post Read Shelves: Post-Life Changing & Post-Reviewed
These shelves are essentially "I did something more after reading these." 

As a result of being more intentional in my reading habits, more are being reviewed and they go here. We all know that the 5 star system is arbitrary. We've heard the complaints, seen the title and author carnage. I use Book Roast's CAWPILE system because it makes it a little less arbitrary and makes you think critically about why you are giving something that rating. It is still wholly subjective, not denying that, but it almost forces me to come up with the why rather than "I just didn't like it, okay?!?"

Life Changing is exactly what it sounds like. These are the books that completely changed my world view, my view of self, the way I interact with the world. These books rocked me. Not a lot of them have reviews at the moment. Many of them were books I read as a child and I remember it changing me forever. I want to reread a lot of them and really dig into them with the mindset I had when I originally read them and distinctly identify the why they changed me so I can share that with more of the world.

Collection Shelves

These three are slightly weird shelves. They have unread and read books on them. Should be for the most part self explanatory, but here we go.

Classics
Do I need to say more? No, but I will anyway. These are classic series like Sherlock Holmes, the Three Musketeers, Narnia. Books by Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Homer, C.S. Lewis, Jack London, William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain. World changing books like Fahrenheit 451, The Odyssey, The Great Gatsby, The Diary of a Young Girl, Flowers for Algernon, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, The Hiding Place, and on and on. It is not a complete listing, but every book on it is one that I think a well-read reader should read. There are many I myself have not read. By Jove, I will though.

Comics
If you haven't figured it out yet, let me be absolutely clear: 

I. Stop.
Love. Stop.
Comic. Stop.
Books. Stop. 

I Love Comic Books. No, I haven't read a crap ton or anything. Nor could I tell you very many writers or illustrators. I don't even have a large collection of them. But I love everything they represent. There are very few Marvel ones on the list as I enjoy DC more. And there's odd ones on there like Hatter M by Frank Beddor (loved The Looking Glass Wars series, so had to check out the comics, but finding them without buying them has been a wee bit difficult.) 

Old Man Thrillers
Guilty little pleasure. Sorry. I truly have been trying to find thrillers that I really enjoy that are written by authors who are not Old White Men. I truly have! But how does one do that when even Likewise just recommends more Old White Men books? And as far as I can tell at a glance it is the entirety of the three series Sigma Force by James Rollins (my favorite of them), Cotton Malone by Steve Berry, and Scot Harvath by Brad Thor (the series at fault for my guilt.) 

In theory, everything James Bond should be in here too, but I haven't gotten around to pulling the trigger to decide if they need to be. When I get into Casino Royale, I may decide to quit. Not sure if I will wanna deal with the blatant written misogyny. As I spend more time sorting, more series may be added to this. But if that is the case, the books must be Thrillers and must be written by some wrinkly old white dude. 

I also might leave it just these three series. Rollins, Berry, and Thor are all still alive and still writing these series. They actually reference one another's characters so the series sorta exist in the same world? Kinda. I actually don't think the current Presidents of the United States and high officials in the series can maintain continuity to be honest.

We might also be adding more Collections shelves because I also have a nasty habit of getting sucked into Forgotten Realms (Thank you, Drizzt Do'Urden), almost anything published by Wizards of the Coast really, everything related to Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter world, and every Middle Grade/YA thing Rick Riordan touches.

Unread Shelves

And now we come to my Unread Shelves. Truly this needed to happen as the primary "To Read" shelf was a nightmare to sort and was not useful in finding "My Next Read". With nearly 850 books between it and all the recommendations I've been jotting down in my reading journal pages the past month... I need to have some way to help me pick what is next.

TBR Current & TBR ReReads
We all know "TBR" by this point right? These two are lists of books that I have selected to use for challenges or specific books that I have already read and want to read again relatively soon to reacquaint myself with them.

Up Next & Up Next Series Firsts
These are the books I want to read next, just like it sounds. Again though, this is a mood read thing. Essentially these are the top priority and I look here first for a mood read and if nothing strikes my fancy, I continue on. In the case of Series Firsts, these are the first books in series that either look good, have been recommended, by a previously read author, but I have never read anything in the series. All First in a series. 

Not all of my 'New to Me' series First Books are on here. It's the most intriguing ones. None of the "Firsts in a Series" in the backlist of Tamora Pierce, Cassandra Clare, R.A. Salvatore or Rick Riordan are included in this list. Frankly, they aren't separate series and anyone who says so is an idiot. You really can't jump in just anywhere and know what the hell is happening. These authors write sub-series thankyouverymuch.

These four shelves are also stickied with my PopSugar challenge and the current year's read books.

Series & Series New
I mentioned that I get sucked into series, right? Yeah. Thought so. The Series Shelf are all the subsequent books of series that I am already currently reading. When I finish a book in a series, I select "Finished Reading" and it immediately takes me to the book's page in my app. From there I click on the series name and move the next book in the series from this shelf to the Up Next shelf previously mentioned. 

When I find out that a new book has been released for one of these series, it gets added. It essentially acts as a gauge to see how much is left of my backlist to get through. My second largest shelf, it currently contains 236 books and may need a paring down. Also, adding new collections shelves could help as there is a large backlist of R.A. Salvatore, Cassandra Clare, Tamora Pierce, Rick Riordan in this... 

As for Series New. This is a little tougher. Series starters that look interesting. Entire new series by a previously read author, sometimes just the first book, sometimes the whole damn thing. At this point I've read some of Kelley Armstrong's Middle Grade Fantasy that she writes under K.L. Armstrong, as well as her Young Adult Fantasy and her Adult Fantasy and I have not been disappointed by any of it. Except for the narrator of the final Otherworld book Thirteen. That was a letdown of the highest order, but that was not Armstrong's fault. Yes. It's been nearly 2 years and I'm still bitter about it. Anywhoooo.... 

There's also the occasional series where I've never read anything of the series, never read the author's work, but I'm completely obsessed with the topic or subject. Such as Assassin's Creed; anything Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler, Professor Moriarty; or it's yet another PI series.

This is my largest shelf of the whole lot, at 305. Definitely needs pared down, particularly with the number of modern Sherlock Holmes retellings that should probably have their own shelf. Maybe Lady PI's need their own too? Sheesh.... How many Lady PI series are on here!?!?

Standalone & Standalone New
Um, so we've discussed how I'm a series junkie. This is my anthem and why I keep bringing it up. But occasionally there are Standalone books or Standalone book authors that I love. 

With the exception of a couple small series such as the Bourne series, P.T. Deutermann and Robert Ludlum are two more Old White Man Thriller writers, but almost every single one of their books is meant to be read and done. 

The late Carole Nelson Douglas wrote some one offs in the 80s. I truly love her Midnight Louie series and am starting in on her Irene Adler series, so who knows, I may love her standalones too.

Standalone New is actually my very first "Interest Blurb" shelf (See next section). If it sounded interesting, wasn't part of a series, and I'd never read anything by the author before, it went here. Amazingly, Anne Rice can be found on this shelf. It's also books that were so stellar they made blockbuster movies out of them and the world wouldn't shut up about them, like The Help, Life of Pi, and Fight Club. The rare nonfiction can be found, again, based on subject matter, such as Jack the Ripper, Matthew McConaughey's book, and the fiction book written by actor/director, Eoin C. Macken (my favorite The Night Shift doc, TC Callahan. Mrow).

Interest Shelves: Blurb, New, Rec
Before I really got my act together and got a reading journal in place that works for me, I started a couple interest shelves. These weren't really TBR books, but they are, sorta. A title that I'm not sold on reading, but maybe? Totally Non-Committal on these. 

Blurb: The summary sounds interesting, found it scrolling past a bookstore display or at the library. Saw it on the Dollar Spin Rack, but didn't wanna spend the money right now. Saw it splashed across the top of Goodreads and it actually caught my eye rather than annoying the ever loving CRAP out of me. (Those Bridgerton ads, Gah!)

New: This is a completely empty shelf at the moment. My reading journal has a place for New Releases, but I think I have maybe 5 on my shelves currently? I have not added many of these as the list kept getting longer and longer and I had too many window tabs open to start adding them all to my digital shelves. I'm debating if I want to do this by year, or just in total and when 2023 starts, start over. I'm not sure yet. When is a book no longer a "New Release" for me? No matter what, when I start putting books on it, this shelf will make 810 go up over the 850 mark very soon.

Rec: These are books that have been recommended by one of my book lists, a reviewer, a BookTuber that I watch religiously, a friend who cannot stop talking about it, or my son. 

Whew! Too much and Overkill

Yeah, yeah. I know. Who spends this much time organizing one aspect of their life?? Uh, me?

Also. I'm a glutton for punishment.

And so are you! You got all the way to the end. Leave me a Star emoji in the comments if you did! 😀