Booking Through Thursday: Shelving

It's Thursday and that means we have another BTT question waiting for us:
How do you organize/store your books? Do you go through them often? Or do you pretty much just shelve them and then leave them alone until you need them?
This is actually a question I myself was thinking about today. Here at home I had a big bookcase in my room for my own book and two others downstairs for the family books. Whenever I bought books I usually would either put them on my bed because I wanted to read them or put the in my bookcase. The only shelf I have that is organised is my shelf of antique books. I like them to be nicely shelved, all of them in a straight line without anything to disturb me from staring at them. I believe that a 100-yr old book should be treated with some respect. For the rest I sort of try to keep series together, but that often doesn't work out!

This picture to the left isn't how my room usually looks, trust me. I just moved out of my room and I had to pack all of my books. I never realised how chaotic I was when it came to books until I took them all out. I actually loved being surrounded by stacks of books! My problem was that my bookcase is continuously full, which meant books we be laying on top of others, shelves were doubly stacked, my desk, meant for schoolwork, was covered in books and usually there were some downstairs as well. I usually tried at least once a week to prioritise my bookshelves, so that the books I wanted to read now were the closest to my bed etc, but that usually just ended up with me being frustrated. So I mainly just left them the way they were until I read them. Now that I'm going of to University I have no idea how the book situation is going to work out, but I'm going to do English so I'm sure there will be a lot of books!

This question led me to look into the fascinating world of bookshelves and cases and there are some amazing  ones out there I wanted to share!

The Book Staircase:

I mean, just wow. I would never leave the stairs. I'd just make it a big bigger to fit in a seating area where I could also put a phone and then this is where I would spend my time. Just imagine the categories you could come up with to fill each shelf! I could do an English shelf, a Dutch one, one for just Jane Austen and the Brontes, a Shakespeare step! Only worry would be me kicking my books the entire time, which would be a shame. But it's a great way to save space. I love it. 



The Bookcase Door:


This one is pretty epic. I mean, everyone has seen it in the movies: you pull a book and a secret door opens. But this is the real world and it is even better. You simply open up your bookcase and enter a different room. I want this one, very badly, and I would put it in between my work space and bedroom. You could do the entire dirty library scene from 'Atonement' but simply move to the bedroom at some point. I'm loving this idea so much! It's not only ingenious and pretty, it would be a great party trick and it is simply a proper bookcase. It's big, sturdy-looking and could hold quite a lot of books. Possible problem, what happens when it becomes to heavy to be shifted easily, you could end up lock in our out of your room.

Geometric Bookcases:

I think this could work quite well, especially because it also serves as decoration so you could literally out these all through the house. And it is funny to look at. My only worry would be that some books simply don't fit in and I'd still need to have proper book case for the bigger books.

So, what is your answer and do you have any unusual book case/shelving solutions?