What I Learned From Alphabetizing 400 Books

Size matters

As well as sorting the books, I also stacked them up in orderly rows in a suitable nook. The hardest thing about doing that is that books come in different sizes. The most common size (maybe about 3/4 of them) formed some aesthetically pleasing rows. Some of the remaining 1/4 are trapped in book limbo in a (temporary) heap on the floor.

Many authors have a surname beginning with M

If your dream is to write a novel, and your name begins with i or v, I'm sorry to say the odds are against you.

Books are great

It's true. 

Books smell

I've heard it said that people love the smell of old books and I can only imagine that those people are in better ventilated rooms than mine.

My wife has read so many more books than me

I mean, it's not a competition. But she is winning.

We live in physical reality

I spend much more time sorting and organising digital files than I do physical objects and it turns out that one of these processes requires more foresight than the other.

That M pile really kept growing.

I want to read more

I guess I didn't learn that, because I already knew it. But I've had it reinforced. Happily, I now have some new ones in mind and I know where to find them.