So I thought I might add something to this website other than just my random reviews. I often have thoughts about book related things and never really know how to get them out, and then I thought why not create a themed post that I can use as a forum for these little thoughts? I'd also like to try and get a little more audience participation, since I know you're out there and perhaps this would be the one time you might like to comment. I am a comment whore, I love comments, so I am blatantly plugging my comment section!I thought that I would start small, since I know myself too well and saying that I would like to do a Rambling Reader segment at least ONCE a month would be safe (I was going to go with once a week, but there is too much up in the air in my life right now to keep to that schedule - as it is I predate many of my posts so I can write them when I have time!).This brings us to our very first instalment of Rambling Reader: How do you Stack Up? *trumpet fanfare*I am interested in the way people keep track of and organize their books. Either virtual or real life shelves. I find it fascinating and though I am sadly lacking in shelf space in my house leaving many books in piles and boxes all over the place, I try to keep them organized as much as possible. Even before I got my job at a retail bookstore in my early 20s, I had a habit of keeping my bookshelves organized. When I was a kid I had all my series in order (NOTHING bothers me more than seeing a series of books out of order. You should have them from book 1 to the end. Not books 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 2, 5. ARGH!) and I kept the "scary" (a.k.a. Fear Street) books on one shelf (IN ORDER!) and the "mystery" (a.k.a. Nancy Drew circa 1990) books on another. I even went so far as to make little Dewey Decimal tags for each of my books (I know, I was a geek) and had them taped on the bottom of every spine. Oh, how I loved library books, I guess!

As I got older and my book collection started to grow, the sections got bigger and I was alphabetizing authors and then chronologicalling by series. It was an art. I loved my shelves. My husband's books would get their own spots on the shelves, but I didn't quite organize them as obsessively because I didn't like the books. (ha!)

I started to post about the books I was reading over on my main blog, but then saw many people (like Monkey) had Book Blogs and though it took me a while to decide to start one, I did. I had also discovered GoodReads through one of my best friends, Jill. I thought GoodReads was pretty neat, though time consuming to add in all your books and I am not quite sure I am happy with how you can organize your books. Nevertheless I am on there and I have added over 140 books to my shelves.I also tend to use my Amazon Wishlist as a place to keep track of books I'd like to read or that interest me. It's not just there as a BUY ME THIS STUFF!!! list, it's actually there to help prompt my memory about books I have been waiting for or need to watch out for. (I currently have a couple of books on there with a note "to remind me to look for the paperback in a year".)I have not yet found a system that I am happy enough with to keep track of books. Monkey has started using LibraryThing, though I have been informed that the free account only lets you add 100 books. Not good enough for me. I have seen many book blogs with Shelfari widgets in their sidebars and I have not really looked into that one yet. I like the way it displays books in the shelf widget though.

When I move to a new house (ok, yes, we only just bought this one last year), I am going to try and have one room a library room and finally buy more bookshelves (they cost money and well, sometimes it's more important to pay your mortgage...) and REALLY organize our books by subject and author and whatnot. Right now most of our books are still in boxes - no need to unpack what we've read only to put them on the floor. And I would like to go through them and make a pile to give away (have tried Bookmooch, but found I spent more money sending my books to people and not finding anything I wanted in return, so I gave that up very fast). My parents are always donating things to their Church bazaar so I might just leave a box o' books with them. The trouble is deciding what I don't want to hold on to anymore. I think I have enough books in my house to start my own used book store.I guess I'll just keep using Amazon for my reminders and then try to think of a way to remember what I already read (especially for authors like Iris Johansen, Kay Hooper and J.D. Robb! If I can't remember the name of their newest books I have to look at each one and see if I have read it. So frustrating!)So what do you out there in Book Blog land use? How do you keep track of books you read, want to read, buy, etc? I'm curious. There are a ton of options out there and I am not interesting in using them because they are "the coolest right now" but because they are the most useful!