I spent a few hours over the last couple of days cleaning, tidying, sorting and organising my bookshelves.

No, not the real ones, the virtual ones on my Kindle.

One of the things I love about the Kindle app is that it has Collections available on all my devices except (explain this one) for the one on my computer. So sorting and tidying on my Paperwhite, Tablet or phone app means it’s sorted on all. I spent a couple of hours each day for a little while to organise the books (thousands, yes: I love books) into easier and more accessible piles.

The advantage of my virtual books is that I can put each book on multiple shelves. So a cookbook can go on my cookbook shelf in my Hygge bookcase, or in the HW4R bookcase on the Physical shelf. Yes, I managed to create bookcases as well as shelves. I’ll explain my system , and you can either give me the side eye (I did have better things to do as well, of course I did) or nod and tell me it actually makes sense. Which it does to me.

Bookcases.

I did this by creating Family Labels for different sorts of books. This word goes at the start of the label of the shelves I want to keep on that bookcase. I have : Books, Christianity, HW4R, Hygge, Seasons, Stacks and W.

Books is a useful start-of-the-alphabet label that means a shelf stays at the top of my collections list. I have 3 shelves here: Books Currently Reading, Books Read and Books TBR (1205). I think these will be the shelves I use most, since they’re the first places I should put a book on purchase and the last place I need to put one once finished. I also have a 2023 label, and that records my annual consumption. Only books I’ve read or reread this year go there.

Christianity is all my faith-based books or study guides. Christianity Apologetics is all the technical books, arguments for/against, theological works, writings of holy people etc. Christianity Christmas holds all my Christmas books, whether overtly Christian or not, because I celebrate Christmas as a Christian. There are a lot of advent guides, chick lit romances and, yes, quite a few cookbooks in there. Christianity Lent and Easter has Lent reading guides, a couple of books I lined up for a Fiction Reading Fast one year and anything secular that has Easter as its raison d’etre.

HW4R is an abbreviation of House With Four Rooms and comes from Rumer Godden, who used the ancient Indian proverb that everyone is a House With Four Rooms and needs to air each of them daily as the title for her autobiography. The rooms are Emotional, Mental, Physical and Spiritual and I do try to allocate non-fiction according to which one I think they belong in. Spiritual holds anything I have that has a spiritual leaning but not necessarily a Christian one… yoga, mindfulness etc. I’m still sorting into these shelves, so it’s an emptier bookcase than it will probably end up being.

Hygge (of course, I had to have a Hygge bookcase!) divides up into cookery, hibernation, homemaking, hygge, My Inner French Girl and simplicity. The books here are generally my favourite non-fiction reads: running a smooth house, creating a cosy home, learning from other cultures (My Inner French Girl has books about La Dolce Vita, the Dutch Gezellig and the German Gezelligheid as well as style, fashion and beauty). Simplicity and its haughtier cousin Minimalism have 409 books between them. My children reckon that’s a lesson in oxymorons in itself: an extensive minimalist collection.

Seasons is self-explanatory. If I find a book that screams out Winter Reading, I file under Winter. Ditto Summer and Autumn, but not Spring which I find interesting. A lot of my chick lit gets replicated here (being able to put a book on more than one shelf simultaneously is a great feature) and some of the best Scandi-Noir has to be saved for Winter.

Stacks and W are basically storage spaces. Stacks stores lists I created for menopause (The Change), Choc-O-Lit, Office Ninja and others that I don’t need daily access to, but are useful to have. W is the most basic bookcase of all. Everything coming in to my life as an ebook should go on one of these two bookcases: Fiction or non-fiction. I have 5,000 books on Kindle (I love books: go on, call me what you like) and ultimately every one will be somewhere on these two lists.

Rereading this post, it strikes me I am completely a nerd. So uncool. But that’s the life of a bookworm and hoarder for you. At least I am an organised bookworm, so that’s something.

And the activity has had a positive effect on my physical environs as well. I have Plans to swap out living and dining areas to recreate a library feel in the living room. I’m already looking at the 3 full height and 2 half height bookcases and wondering how I want to organise them. I’m thinking: Classics, hygge, travel, cookery, history…. or by colour? Height? I will need all my grey Persephone books in one area. Do I separate black Penguin Classics from my study years from Orange Penguin classics of my youth? How do I ensure empty spaces? Do I keep books because they’re old and I love the embossed spines, or should it be purely practical. Decisions, decisions, and only two weeks to make them!

Are you a book lover as well? Do you organise your books, or are you a stacker who never felt the need to catalogue their books? (when I was a child, I had my own library catalogue box, complete with cards and a borrowing system: children put paid to that!) And… with no judgement guaranteed, because we’re all different…. how has being a reader/non-reader impacted your life?

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

How to Hygge Your Summer is my book about making the most of summertime. Hygge is so often seen as a winter pastime, and yet the principles of hygge (good food, good friends, time to be) are just as applicable to days when you can gather in a park or garden as when you gather round the fireplace. This book only scrapes the surface of what you can do, but hopefully sends you off with inspiration to make your own summer hygge.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of summer/autumn/winter.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is by Arno Smit on Unsplash. I wish I had a garden shed like this one! I chose it because I love the colours of the windowframes, the tantalisingly inviting open door and the comfy chair within. Perfect spot for a cup of tea and a good book. And the header today is the shot of my Kindle alongside my work computer. I love that Kindles are light enough to slide into any bag and take to any situation. Thank goodness. I always have a good book to read.