Home Library: The Ultimate Indulgence

Why should you create a personal oasis, no matter the square footage you have!

If I were to write about my love affair with books, I don’t think I could ever do justice to them. Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated with dreams, visions and exploring the distinct. And while kids my age wanted to be astronauts, doctors or movie stars, I wanted to be a connoisseur of books - a librarian or a book expert or a book critic. And surely, I would blame (not) my family for this obsession!

Ever since I can remember, I had a home library with books ranging from old school romance of Mills and Boon to hardcore spy fiction of Robert Ludlum to timeless classics from Charles Dickins; we used to read it all! Only a select few who would visit us got the opportunity to enter our coveted personal library, from which we used to occasionally lend books (but never got them back!) But that never stopped us from buying more and more books, and finishing them even more swiftly.

Even though I didn’t end up becoming a librarian, my affection for books never wavered a bit. And this completely shows in the stacks of books scattered around my room; some sneaking from my cupboards, some hiding in the chest of drawers or some just placed haphazardly across my home. And most of the times these piles consisted of unread books, I was so desperate to read, but never got the chance to. And as the pandemic stuck, it was a golden opportunity for me to go back and drown into my books. That is when it struck me: Do librarians live with literature towers too? How do book experts organize and curate their collections? Or do they also have books lined up everywhere? And how do those towers never buckle?

So, I started reading more about book management and after a couple of days, I attacked my home library, to finish the re-curation and restructuring of all the books in a week. Read on some practical and useful advice that helped me in curating my home library, right from scratch:

1. THE KEY IS TO ORGANIZE

The most important job of arranging and maintaining a home library is thorough meticulous organization. There are a couple of ways this can be done, based on one’s preferences: sort by color code for an overall aesthetic space, sort by genre for a more definitive reading, sort by alphabets for brevity or sort by authors (my choice). Another approach I recently discovered is to sort books by hardback and paperback covers.

Ultimately, you should curate it the way you like to see your space and home. And remember, you can always rearrange.

2. WARY OF HOARDING BOOKS

As hard as it is to write this down, it is harder to understand that we cannot hold onto our books forever. Librarians and literary experts regularly sort their stacks as well!

Instead of discarding and disposing of books, you can lend them to friends in exchange for books they wish to remove. You could donate them or re-home the ones that you know you won’t read again. You could donate them to thrift stores or any organization in your country that reuses them in schools or universities. The founder of H.St Bookclub, Lupita Aquino keeps a stack of books that need to be removed on her front door, so anyone who wishes to have any of them is free to take it. For her kids’ books, she donates them to the local library.

3. MAINTAINING A ‘TO-READ’ LIST

Instead of displaying and tucking in books you intend to read, all across your home, you can maintain a to-read list. This list can include all the books you are currently reading or wish to read next. I have been guilty of mis-managing and scattering my books everywhere across my room, and this advice genuinely worked for me. So you could surely take this in from the horse’s mouth.!

Another variation of this advice (depending on the available space) is to dedicate a shelf specifically for the books that you intend to read in a month/bi-annually/yearly. Watching this shelf replenish with new books is such a happy feeling :)

4. TAKE CARE OF YOUR BOOKS

The trick to maintain a great home library is to ensure that all the books are regularly cleaned and taken care of. It is a good idea to pull out everything once a month and clean all the shelves. Make sure that the covers are not sticking together, there is no mold anywhere in the books, the entire shelf is completely dry, no sign of dampness and away from direct sunlight (or it may fade the colors).

This is also a great opportunity for you to weed through your book collection :P

5. ADDING THAT PERSONAL TOUCH

The last and my favorite tip is to do what really matters to YOU - Curate your library the way you wish to, because it is unique to you. It is so easy to get influenced and bogged down by aesthetic libraries on social media or to think that they need to look a certain way. But remember, not each one of them are as functional as you may wish them to be. And who has the time to be dictated by social media trends when there are so many wonderful books to read?

Reading is such a personal journey and so should organizing your books be.

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Has the pandemic brought you closer to your books? Do you have a home library? And how do you curate your home library? I would love to hear your organization tips and tricks in the comments below!

Xx, AG