New Bookshelf Tour! Overflowing Fantasy Shelves and Cluttered Classics

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on adding a new bookshelf to my collection. I scavenged an old shelf from my parents garage, gave it a clean and a lick of paint to match my other shelves, and here it is (it’s the smaller one on the right of the photo for anyone who might have never seen my bookshelves before).

My books had been living in piles on the floor for a good couple of years, so I’m just so happy to see them all displayed as they should be! Because they’d been in piles, I don’t think I had a good concept of how many of them there actually were. I was expecting to have a shelf or two of room on the new bookcase, for expansion, but that turned out to very much not be the case. In fact, there were so many that I’ve had to utilise the space at the top already.

But never fear, for I already have even more plans for expansion – how many bookshelves is too many bookshelves for one (smallish) room, I wonder? I also have a third bookshelf around the corner, where I keep the majority of my non-fantasy books. I’ve included some photos of those too, although they’re admittedly a little bit less aesthetic, with them being crammed to the brim (but I do also love that disorganised, cluttered look!).

Anyway, for someone who relishes in posting pictures of her bookshelves online, I thought we were well overdue a bit of a bookshelf tour. Forgive the slightly self-indulgent post but I just can’t get over how pretty they look!

I decided to fill the top shelf with a lot of my bigger series, so the Farseer trilogy, the Greenbone saga and a couple duologies like Prince of Thieves and the Jasad Heir.

The second shelf has some new additions – my copy of Sunsplitter, the sequel to Voidwalker, just arrived the other day and I’m obsessed with the gold and silver foiling on the spines – they make them stand out so much! Also my Illumicrate copy of A Snake Among Swans (which I got signed and personalised the other day after meeting Hannah at an event!). In the middle, I have some of my favourite paperbacks, such as the Shepard King duology, Amina al-Sirafi and Red City.

Perhaps my favourite part of the new shelf is this third row, with all of my gorgeous Fairyloot and Illumicrate editions. Some favourites from this shelf are the Everlasting, The Poet Empress, the Second Death of Locke and Fallen City.

A view of the right side of this shelf. I knew I wanted somewhere for my Dramione books to go – Alchemised, Rose in Chains and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, and I love how they look together.

I also stacked some Juliet Marillier – Daughter of the Forest series, along with Wildwood Dancing and Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick, because they are a slightly awkward size of paperback, but I love having a shrine to one of my new favourite authors.

I’m using this litle stool as a place for my priority TBR (although there are far too many books for that little stool to hold, so I have to be selective). Currently on there is Six Crimson Cranes, The Castle and the Cloister, The Unicorn Hunters, The Winged Game, Saltswept and Aicha.

I’m a really big fan of the second-from-bottom shelf, which has a lot of autumnal / dark academia vibe books – like my Isabel Canas collection and my Robert Jackson Bennett collection.

This is the bookshelf around the corner. On the bottom shelf, I have my Oxford classics, with a lot of poetry and plays on the shelf above too and some more modern classics like Margaret Atwood and Donna Tartt.

The shelf above that is a bit miscellaneous – mainly its literary fiction, with the likes of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors, as well as some R.F. Kuang.

The miscellaneous theme continues – I warned you it was cluttered and disorganised. In an ideal world, I’d love to have the space to organise by genre and author and have everything in its right place, but right now, things just go where they best fit. The bottom shelf is predominantly thrillers and horror, which I don’t read a ton of but definitely want to explore more. I have my Daphne du Maurier collection – one of my favourite classic authors – as well as some non-fiction such as Educated, The Five and Femina (all non-fiction books I’d really recommend!).

The top shelf is romance! I don’t read so much contemporary romance anymore – when I do, it’s mainly historical or romantasy – but obviously I’m a big Emily Henry fan, as well as Abby Jimenez, although I haven’t enjoyed some of her more recent releases.

So that’s my bookshelf tour! Let me know what you think of the new addition and my new book nook, as well as if you have any tips on how to cram more books into this space, as I’m in desperate need of that…