These days, Suruga in deed added the books I wanted from their Japanese site to the international site, so that I could buy them. Actually I didn‘t expect that to happen, but now the books are on their way, just three weeks after I asked them 
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Slightly random but thought it was still a little on topic; how does everyone sort their physical books?
So far I’ve been trying to keep like for like together (all light novels grouped together, all manga grouped together etc) and trying to keep sets together within that in natively level with the lowest level stuff at the front (since I’m likely to read that first but also have like 3 rows of books in front of each other because of my shelf space).
I’m sure there is a better way to organise them but just wondered what everyone else does with theirs? My English books are grouped by genre and then sub category within that.
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My manga are organized loosely by theme and physical size. I have an entire row for my favorite Kirara series (with another couple dozen volumes elsewhere for lack of space), one row that’s mostly yuri, and one row for trans and other gender bending manga. After that the last two rows are just random miscellaneous stuff, plus more random series piled up elsewhere again for lack of space. It would probably be better organized (i.e. two dedicated rows for Kirara and some half-empty shelves to keep themes more separated) if I had another full height book shelf next to it, but alas I do not. Maybe I should shunt off all my English books to another place to reclaim two shelves for manga. 
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Theme, then publisher/author, then size. I try to a tack horizontally, so I can display as many covers as possible, but certain things stay vertical, for space reasons
The magazines and cds are making things trickier at this point (I’ve moved all the ガルクラ stuff to a separate desk, but I’ll be out of room when the rest come in)… and some things are just what fit next to each other. Considering a new bookshelf soon
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I have limited space, so I have mine organized so that:
- Books in a series are always together
- Book types are generally together (reference books, novels, manga, etc.)
The rest is three-dimensional Tetris to make sure they all fit on the single bookshelf that’s available for them. 
(no Tetris emoji 
)
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I have four main sections:
Sports (which is just JP, even though I have at least a couple EN books that could go here too—oh, except for OMGCP), where I’ve got manga at the top and novels* at the bottom. Both I have organized alphabetically, but to make stacking easier and thus save space, with novels I have tankoubon on one side and then bunkobon. I’m also currently including music on this shelf specifically because I kept thinking of ましろのおと as a sports anime even though it’s shamisen. It’s about the vibes.
*Note that I make no distinction between any of the novel subtypes literally anywhere.
Then there’s manga, which I have mostly organized by series name (e.g. 卒業生 is with the Ds because it’s the sequel to 同級生), but some get shifted around slightly to make stacking easier, due to different page sizes. I have what few EN manga I still own mixed in.
Next is novels, which I have separated by language. The JP ones are a bit of a mess since I still haven’t finished redoing my other shelving unit (my room came with 2 built into the wall, and when we repainted my room as a kid, my parents had the bright idea to use semigloss) and thus don’t have much room, especially with my figures and acrylic stands etc. taking up space at the front of the shelves. I started out with those in alphabetical order too, but currently they’re just kinda stacked wherever they fit. Including on the floor. (汗)
(I do have a bunch of manga and JP novels stacked in front between my knick knacks though. I really gotta finish my other shelves…)
My EN novels I have organized by genre, then within them it’s basically just vibes, but also somewhat by size (stacking) and I’ll keep an author’s books together even if they’re not a series. If a book could go in two genres, I just do whichever.
Last there’s nonfiction. This is also mixed EN and JP. I have them grouped by field/topic/subject, though all the particularly tall books are on the bottom shelf because it’s the only one tall enough.
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Same exact setup here. An author’s works won’t even necessarily live together, though books in a series will.
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I keep the books I’ve finished and the ones I haven’t separated. Within each section they’re ordered by type and size, then author name in 五十音 order, because I wanted to get better at finding books in Book Off.
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For Japanese I have manga separate from books, and then within that I keep all books by an author together, but otherwise it’s fairly random. I don’t like to break an author’s books between two shelves, so sometimes I move things around to avoid that. I mostly keep the nonfiction and the couple of children’s books I have together, but I prioritise “same author together” over that, so there’s one or two non-fiction books elsewhere on the shelves with their author’s fiction works.
For English I’m a bit more haphazard, but computing non fiction lives in the study, other non fiction is downstairs in the living room. I did sort out my non fiction on Japan and Japanese to pull it all into one place last year. Fiction is half upstairs in the bedroom and half downstairs in the living room – it used to all be upstairs, but the increasing size of my Japanese language book collection has pushed some of it downstairs. There’s also an element of sorting by size as some of my bookshelves will only fit the small paperback size, and only a few shelves are big enough for full sized hardbacks.
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I separate read/unread books and divide generally into:
- fiction
- non-fiction
- textbooks/dictionaries
- manga
- graphic novels
- (poetry would also be extra, but I don’t currently own any)
I don’t really sort within those cateogries. I keep series and books by the same author together, but the rest just lives on my shelf often simply based on size. 
Works for me, but I keep my collection small.
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Thank you for everyone's insight into how you organise your bookshelves 😊
I think I maybe need to look at my shelf space and maybe move the textbooks so I can free up some extra space to organise better. For the moment, I’ve left it separating Manga/ Light novels/ Children’s books/ Novels/ Text books. Then within that, natively level order with higher levels at the rear of the shelf and lower levels at the front unless it’s a series, then left it in series order together, but as I read through things, I’m likely to start grouping novels and light novels into genre rather than level. That way I should be able to find things easier. I think I’ll also end up with a shelf of my favourites
First part of my CD Japan haul that’s been received:
Top row: S級ギルドを追放されたけど、実は俺だけドラゴンの言葉がわかるので、気付いたときには竜騎士の頂点を極めてました。
Main character is kicked out of the top Dragon knight guild then finds out he has the ability to talk to dragons.
Middle row: かがみの狐城 books 1 & 2 then book 3 of one of the Monster Hunter light novel series (the other 5 from this series are coming separately)
Bottom row: 江ノ島は猫の島である
Main character moves to his grandfathers house on Enoshima and finds a talking cat that wants his help.
Top row: おっさん、異世界でドラゴンを育てる
Main character ends up in another world on a Dragon ranch that’s going under and discovers he can speak with dragons to try to save the ranch.
Middle row: 紫禁城の秘密のともだち
Far right was part of the children’s book club nominations that I thought looked interesting, I like the town map in the front cover of the books.
Bottom row: 人間嫌いの転生少女はドラゴンの夢を見る
Another “I can talk to dragons” book but with a twist that’s apparently revealed in the second part. I liked the blurb and thought it would fit nicely with my other dragon books. And then last book in the bottom right: 「もしも?」の図鑑 ドラゴンの飼い方 I just couldn’t resist. It has some folklore in it and a cute little manga to go with the multitude of creature pics throughout. It also mentions certain Yokai as well as monsters and different types of dragons. It has full furigana as well.
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I have the ebooks. Very much looking forward to reading this. Are you planning to read this soon or is it more of a “one day” thing? 
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It’s a bit high for my level just now but it’s one of the ones I want to read sooner rather than just when I get to it. I’m not sure exactly when I will be ready for it though.
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That’s odd… We seem to have a duplicate with the version I added forever ago (one of them has 2 authors listed. Edit: I reported it from this one’s page just now):
Quite possibly the longest LN title I’ve seen! Still never got around to reading it (totally forgot it existed lol!)
I’ll have to look more closely later, but cool haul btw 
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Not a duplicate entry, the ones I’ve got are Light Novels and the one you’ve linked shows under Manga (both here and on CD Japan). I think the rating on Natively for the Light novel ones is maybe a little low but I’m not sure as I’ve not read it yet.
I liked the blurb and thought since it had dragons, I should add it to my collection
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Oh, I feel dumb now… (It’s been a busy day at work lol)
I also thought the blurb was cool back when I got it. Would be curious to hear your thoughts if/when you read it. I’m in the middle of too many things to consider starting anything new rn. Tho the fact that it’s an LN in the 20s, makes it a useful candidate for me.
Maybe if I haven’t managed to forget it exists, by the time I finish any of the LNs I’m reading lol
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I went to Japan two (!!!) months ago and I made some book and manga purchases. I meant to share a long time ago, but here they are now!
Upon my return home and after a couple months of reflection…I realize that I may
have gone overboard on my first Japan (and first international!) trip.
Most of them I got from BookOff (in Ikebukuro, to be exact), but some I got new from various bookstores. The one with the book cover is the green border version of 君の名は. I bought a vary of manga: some for beginners, some not so much. Don’t ask how I physically got such a haul back to the US, plus all of the other stuff I got in my two weeks in Japan: I have NO idea.
Anyway, my trip to Japan was amazing. People ask how it was and I keep saying that it was two of the best weeks of my life. I miss it and I already want to go back, next time with better reading and speaking skills!
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Not by panically moving books from your medium-large checked bag into your personal item, and then having to lug 20ish manga plus what you had already packed through Haneda airport to your (thankfully direct) flight home?
No? Just me?
But that sounds awesome! I can totally relate to loving it there. Sometimes I’m not even over jetlag yet and I’m planning another trip in my head. Looks like a great haul and sounds like an amazing trip. 
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I somehow got everything in my suitcase, but I had to make a stop at Don Quijote the night before I left for a bigger bag since my backpack wasn’t big enough for whatever couldn’t fit into the suitcase. The hardest part was trying to navigate to Haneda from the hotel in Shinjuku: lugging around a heavy suitcase and have a heavy bag on my back was not fun.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a direct flight and even worse, when I was about to hand off my suitcase again, I found that something ripped a hole in my cloth suitcase! 
I ended up having to worry about whether or not my suitcase, and my books, would survive my next flight. (The worry made even worse by the fact that I had been awake for nearly 24 hours by that point AND the flight was delayed taking off and landing) I can’t even begin to describe my relief when I was reunited with my suitcase, still intact.
Anyway, I want to go bookstore hopping again. This time with a hard-cover suitcase!
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If I ever go to Japan, I will probably end up shipping like boxes of manga back home lmao
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