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• Reputation: 449 Q&A: 14 0 1 156 7 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Paul Constant

  1 0 Oh, dear. I'm not sure; I think you've stumped me. I love my Ballard Bookcase Company bookcase, in part, because it's adjustable. But there are some books that are too goddamned big to reasonably fit on a shelf while making room for other books below. Those books I usually put on top of a bookshelf, with nice bookends on either side. If your ceiling is high enough, I recommend you do the same. They're way high, but I find that the more cumbersome a book, the less likely I am to consult it that often. I have two Buddha bookends and a nice set of jade-looking rhino bookends that my sister got me from South Africa. Otherwise, 14 inches will get just about everything besides art books on a shelf just fine. I like that my bookshelves are all different sizes. I have one shelf that's perfect for mass market paperbacks. There are, I think, eight rows of them, and they all fit perfectly and they look lovely all lined up and sized the same. Anyone else have any theories on optimal shelf size? Paul Constant answered in Arts & Music over 2 years ago | Report 3 comments by elenchos, Fnarf, and elenchos… 0 0 Actually, if Paul Constant doesn't know the answer, to me that means the answer is unknown. So it's worth while for me to survey our books and see if I can optimize this. The hard part is going to be measuring the height and thickness of all the books; I don't think there's a database I can easily tap that will tell me. elenchos commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 One thing I do is organize my books by subject, even micro-subject, which makes it easier to rearrange small sections depending on the available shelf space. And I have chunks that can be combined or separated as necessary -- essays and humorous essays, or travel and history. I like doing this rather than organizing by size (though I've done it that way before too). Fnarf commented over 2 years ago | Report 0 0 Currently we arrange ours by 14-month old. Any books below 2-1/2 feet need to be squeezed in tightly so he can't pull them out and eat the pages. And he can climb higher every day. So the books you want to access frequently need to go on a higher shelf. My long term plan is some kind of a compromise between using shelf space efficiently by having the shelves match the sizes, and being able to find things by having subjects and authors in the same area. So related subjects will share one bookcase, but might be spread over multiple shelves so they fit more efficiently. Of course, the number of bookcases I've built since our son was born stands at zero. They take a lot of your time. elenchos commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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