About my 'shelves'

I wanted to write a little bit about how I categorize my books over at GoodReads so you can get a better feel about how my mind works.  Because the site unfortunately doesn't have a place where I can explain it, you're forced to read about it here, on my blog.  I didn't explain everything - some things are really obvious.  ;)


Authors: I have eight shelves beginning with 'authors-' plus a shelf for annonymous authors.  A while back, I was trying to find a particular book but couldn't remember what I had it categorized under.  I also realized that if it's one I hadn't read yet, I might not know what to categorize it as, and scrolling through 600+ books that I haven't read yet when I only remembered the author's name wasn't that much fun.  So every book automatically gets shelved by author name when I bookmark it.

Alternate Earth:  This could rightly be called "Alternate, Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian/Utopian, Futuristic and Parallel Earths" but there wasn't that much room for such a title, so I stuck with 'Alternate Earth'.  And AE is any and all of those things I just described: basically, the world as we know it, but with a fundamental change.  However, for me to add it to my AE list, the entire world population has to be in on this fundamental change.  Sure, there might be vampires or aliens, but if everyone doesn't know about it, if they're still skulking around abducting people and hiding themselves, then it doesn't belong here.

Animals as Main Characters:  This was originally Anthropomorphic Characters, but that didn't really cover everything for me.  Sure, I've read plenty of books where animals were given human characteristics, but I've also read a lot of books where the main character was an animal just doin' his thing.  This seemed to cover all the bases, without having to make two shelves out of it.

Banned and Challenged Books: At some point in time, somewhere on the planet, the books on this list were banned or heavily challenged by people in authority.  I used three sources to add books to this list:
DeleteCensorship PDF List
Wikipedia List of Books Banned by Governments
Adler Books- List of Books Banned in the U.S.

Beads and Jewelry: As a jewelry artist, these are books I'd love to flip through.

Children's and YA:  Probably my most eclectic shelf.  It has something for everyone between the ages of 3 and 18, but you can be any age to read any of these books - many of them I've read way past the age of 18.

Classics:  I've classified these books as beloved favorites written after the fall of Rome and before the end of World War I, give or take a few years.

Faeries and Fairy Tales:  A lot of people have their own rendition of fairy tales.  More recently popular has been fiction involving the fairy world and fae.  This shelf is for all those books.

Fantasy:  This shelf is specifically for the fantasy books that also take place in the modern era, but aren't urban fantasy, per say.  Read more about how I classify my other books, and you'll probably understand better.

From My Youth:  Everything on this shelf, I read from the year I was in 8th-grade or earlier.  I know high school isn't exactly lacking in youth, but most of the books I read during that time were for school and are on my 'School Reading' shelf.  One thing you should note about this shelf is that I haven't revisited most of the books since I first read them however many years ago, so I rated the books as I remember them, or as I remember liking them.

Ghosts: Books about or involving ghosts.

Gods and Demons and Stuff:  These books have a supernatural element that has to do with the celestial, divine, or anti-divine.

GoodReads Authors:  Books by authors with GoodReads accounts.

Greek and Roman Classics: Writings by ancient Greeks and Romans.

High Fantasy:  Basically Tolkienian fantasy, with swords and orcs and medieval wenches and lots of magic.

Historical Fiction:  Fiction that takes place in the past.  It should be noted that I only consider it HF if the author is writing about the past, not their present (e.i., no Dickens or Austen).

Humor, Parody and Satire:  Humor is an easy one - the book is funny.  Parody and satire can be harder to classify and is not so much funny as making fun of something.

It's Not You, It's Me; Abandoned Books:  These books I've started and never managed to quite finish.  Some of them I have no plans on finishing, while others I hope to get back to someday.

Linguistics and Writing:  Most of these are on grammar and the English language.  A few are about how to write.

Magic:  Fictional books where magic in some shape or form is intrinsic to the plot.

Modern Classics:  Popular books written after World War I, up until about 1990.  (Because, as far as I'm concerned, there's a reason a book is a 'classic,' and less than 20 years of existence isn't it.)  I chose post-WWI to start the 'modern' era after some debate.  Naturally, the line blurs in writing styles in the late Edwardian era and the 1920s, but here we have a lot going on in the writing world that brings us to where we are today: the Harlem Renaissance, American ex-pats living in Paris, and shell-shocked soldiers who saw a war more violent than had ever been fought before, amongst others.

Music:  Both fiction and non-fiction involving musical themes.

Myths, Fables, Folklore and Legends:  Various mythos from different cultures; sometimes overlaps with fairy tales.

Paranormal:  Involving a non-human element.

Prose and Short Stories:  Both fictional and non-fictional short writings.

School Reading:  Books I read for high school and college.  A few I had to read in middle school.

Shapeshifters:  Books involving humans who can become other creatures, or vice versa.

Steampunk-ish: These are either traditional Steampunk or have a Steampunk element.

Urban Fantasy:  Fantastical books set in an urban landscape.  The cityscape must be necessary to the plot for me to consider it UF.  If you can take the 'urban' out of the fantasy, I don't feel belongs in this genre.

Wars and Battles:  Usually non-fiction books about war, though some are fiction.