Claire's Book Line

Hi again. I’m going to do a How- To thing on how to organize a book line, which is basically a way to organize a bookshelf and go through all your books by putting them in a line and reading through them.

I started using a book line about two years ago, and it really helps. Here’s what you do.

1. First, find a lot of book you haven’t gone through in a long time.
2. Sort  those books into three categories: Books you want to give away, but think you should read again; books you want to read again; or books you haven’t read. All of your books should fit into one of these categories.  (If you have a book you don’t want to read right now, but don’t want to get rid of, read it again, and decide if  you want to read it again ever)
3. Then, mix the books up into one line of books and start to read them in order of the line. It doesn’t matter what order you read them in, but try to mix up book you really want to read and books you don’t.
4. When you are reading through the book line, sort the books from the book line you’ve read into two different piles: Books you’re keeping and books you want to give away. When you’re reading through, you can also add other books on to the end of the line. If you have a book from the library, or something else where you have to give it back, filter it into the beginning of the book line so it’s like this: library book, book line book, library book, etc.  
5. At the end you’re probably going to have a smallish pile (books you want to give away) and a few big piles (Books you want to keep). Give away the books you want to give away and with the books you want to keep, you should sort into piles based on genre, author, or anything else and put them onto shelves based on those piles.
6. Repeat every three to twelve months.

This really helps because you might have some books that you should get rid of, but don’t, and a book line helps you to decide if you’re actually going to read something again.

If you try this, comment on how it worked! I hope this helps.