How do you place your books on your shelf?

[LivreAmour217]

I always place my books vertically on the shelf. However, there have been times when I've run out of room and had to place books horizontally on top of the vertical rows of books (I hope I'm making sense). I just moved into a new house, so right now the bookshelves are nice and neat with vertically placed books, but we'll see how long that lasts!

[Thesaurus Rex]

This is such an important topic. I'm so glad we're having this conversation.
Of course I place my books on the shelf vertically, as we are expected to do according to library rules.

[BookAddict1211]

both. vertically first and when thats full i put some on top horizonally

[Michelle-lit]

I place mine vertically for the most part. If they're horizontal, it usually makes it more difficult to grab the book at the bottom of the pile.

[Circling Turtle]

I arrange according to genre and author, and place books both vertically and horizontally. It's a feng shui hangup of mine to prevent 'poison arrows'... Although I was doing it before I found out about the feng shui significance. It just feels better, it's hard to explain. Space is also an issue though. I don't feel that it looks untidy at all, if you do it properly.

[didabean]

All of my books are vertically and in alphabetical order.

[maroki13]

Vertically for all of my books.

[justin_carroll_phd]

I usually place mine vertically and by color. It's great visually and shows great visual interconnections. For example, environmental books tend to be green and blue, Native American history books red and brown, LGBTQ books pink or lavender. The only problem is that I collect more books than shelving and I usually have mix-matched mess of them stacked horizontally across the others.

[Melissa-C-Water]

Vertically....but when I run out of space I place them on top horizontally.
I have different shelves for genres, and I separate my paperbacks from my hardcovers.The hardcovers just look so nice sitting there together.

[bookstra]

Yep, I also put them vertically and they are organised by theme

[daniellelynne]

in alphabetical order by author I find it easier to find the one I'm looking for that way

[theyounglibrarian]

I tend to do a mix of both. I constantly rearrange my books, organizing them by color, height, etc. I have only found one arrangement that I have been able to leave alone for longer than 2 weeks. This arrangement is a mosh posh of things. One shelf is new adult and novels, with contemporaries and review books on top. The second shelf is all of my complete series along with their designated prequels and novellas. And my last shelf is my classics, miscellaneous series books and firsts' in series. Most of my books flow vertically, though I do throw in the occasional stack of horizontal books just to mix it up. I have a hard time just following one direction. By using both, I feel that the shelves gain a more appealing look.

[Amna Khalid]

I place them vertically.

[Alissa Nesson]

I put my books vertically on the shelf but I have a few horizontally on top that don’t fit on the shelf the right way. I’m hoping to fix that though.