Bookshelf Tour (January 2017)

If you guys saw my Instagram story from last week, you might have noticed that I decided to reorganize my books once again. (At first, it sounded like a good idea due to my “new year, new changes” mentality, but then I soon realized how insane I was when a sea of books started to emerge as I began pulling books off the shelves.) Anyway, I thought I’d share these changes since it was quite a drastic transformation this time.

It’s been over a year that I’ve had my books arranged as a quasi rainbow shelf. Though it looked glorious for bookstagram pictures, I couldn’t stand that I had my series separated and it was impractical when I had to search for a title. Keeping that set up was also becoming tedious because I started to accumulate more manga series, which I couldn’t bear splitting up and having them together made the overall look of the scheme pretty wonky. I also now have so many books that I need to double stack shelves in order to conserve shelf space, which doesn’t look as great with the color coordinated trend either.

Therefore me and my dad had a talk and agreed that we were going to move his DVDs (which were at the time occupying the two side shelves that you guys seldom see in my photos) into an empty room we have upstairs. (In exchange for the extra space, the compromise is that he gets unlimited library access to all my books whenever he wants. It’s sort of always been an unbreakable rule that no one-no matter how long or strong of a tie/relationship you have with me-borrows my books. But considering how much shelf space he sacrificed for me, I think the trade is fair. XD) So, basically, now I have a total of five columns of shelves just for books, which is amazing!

With so much room to work with, I didn’t really know how I wanted my books… I just knew I wanted my series reunited once again. Anyhow, I ended up settling with how I had my books set up prior to my rainbow experiment, which was by genre.

So here’s the final look! I admit that it isn’t half as pretty compared to what I had before, but the logical person in me approves and loves this so much more than the former. Also, there’s still a small color coordinated section with my contemporary standalones. If I ever feel like I miss the previous arrangement, I at least have that last remnant of the epic rainbow shelf to stare at. Haha.

Exploring My Bookshelves: December (and Announcing Some Changes to Xingsings)

First off, I wanted to wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas! And for those of you that don’t really celebrate the holiday (like myself), happy Friday! (Oh and this is a scheduled post, even though I don’t celebrate Xmas we still close the family business; I’m visiting my birth town, Atlanta, today. 😀 )

Anyway, so I’m guessing when you read “Announcing Some Changes to Xingsings” you thought I was going to go self hosted (or something along the lines of that) right? Haha, sorry for the false alarm, but actually it’s some news regarding future memes, tags, and awards.

After giving it much thought, I think I’m going to become tag and award free starting from the beginning of 2016. I know several people have different interpretations of what this means. For me and how this will be applied to Xingsings is that I’ll still continue to complete the tags and awards that are in the draft queue. But I will no longer be doing tag and award posts that I’m tagged/nominated in 2016 and onwards. And for the remaining tags and awards I still plan to do, I will continue to tag my usual blogging buddies and five bloggers I want to get to know each time. And it’s up to them if they want to do them. However, if you’re tagged/nominated by me but have also become tag/award free please let me know so I don’t unintentionally spam you.

Exploring My Bookshelves: November

Hi everyone! I’m back today with an Exploring My Bookshelves post. This weekly bookish meme (but adapted as a monthly one on here at Xingsings) was originally created by Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds and now she cohosts it with Shannon at For the Love of Words. Though Top Ten Tuesday lists are fun to make, this is probably my favorite bookish meme to partake in because I get to discover books I don’t really think about anymore and are collecting dust on my shelves. And it’s a great way to document the evolution of your shelves and shelf space. I started participating in this meme back in March and you can really tell how many books I’ve bought since then from my first Exploring My Bookshelves post. Someone please help with my book buying tendencies. OTL

Anyway, let’s get on with the post shall we?

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So this is how my shelves look currently. There’s some slight differences from last month and I have some books on “display.” I also started double shelfing, meaning I have two layers of books in some of the shelves. You can kind of see what I’m describing in the pink shelf, which is the second shelf from the top on the far right.

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November 6, 2015: Favorite Shelf/Shelves

It’s kind of hard to choose a favorite shelf so I chose multiple shelves. I like my blue/teal books the most because… well I like the color blue a lot. It’s my favorite color along with white. I’m so plain, lol. And I know the colors don’t really show that well in the photo… but in person they really do look blue!

Exploring My Bookshelves: October

Hello everyone! I hope you all have been doing well. As promised in my tweet on Twitter earlier this month, I had a couple of blog posts scheduled throughout October. So I stayed logged out of my social media accounts related to Xingsings and was quite absent around the blogosphere the majority of the time. I did do some blog hopping sporadically here and there, but honestly, those moments were just bouts of procrastination away from my studying. I still missed a lot; hopefully I’ll catch up to comments and replies tonight. Anyway, I’ve missed everyone and it’s time for a real, non-schedule post! Today is the last Friday of October so I’m back with an Exploring My Bookshelves post!

But let’s get onto this post, shall we? Oh and for those of you that aren’t as familiar with this lovely meme created by Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds and co-hosted with Shannon at For the Love of Words, it’s a weekly one (but adapted as a monthly here at Xingsings) where readers can share what’s on their shelves and/or discover a book collecting dust on their bookcase. Join in the fun if you want to add a Friday bookish meme to your blog!

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Part of the meme asks the blogger to share a recent photo of their bookshelf, so here’s mine. Honestly, my shelves haven’t changed in any orientation since the previous month when I shared three months worth of this meme. However, I noticed that I need to start double shelfing (as in having two layers of books per shelf) soon.

If you want to take a closer look, click the photo to enlarge it! (Haha, the top is so yellow because I had to turn on the lights; the natural lighting wasn’t really working out today. 😅)

Exploring My Bookshelves: July + August + September

Hi everyone! So it’s been months since I’ve done an Exploring My Bookshelves post because Victoria, the original creator of the meme at Addlepates and Book Nerds, took a small hiatus while she was overseas. So during her time away, I also took a break from these posts. However, Shannon at For the Love of Words was continuing the meme with her own topics. Now both bloggers co-host this meme, which is really exciting! Anyway, it’s time for me to catch up!

For those of you that aren’t familiar to this feature, Exploring My Bookshelves is a weekly bookish meme for bloggers that want to share what are on their shelves. Here on Xingsings, I’ve adapted it as a monthly meme, in which I post my post on the last Friday of the month instead of weekly. And since I have quite a lot of topics to share this time, I’ve decided to change up the format so that this doesn’t become such a long post. All answers are in bold and all links redirect to Goodreads. Some books I mention aren’t photographed, either because I don’t own the book or I think you’ve already seen it multiple times on my blog already.

And I just wanted to say a quick thank you because I reached a new follower milestone the other day. My birthday and blogoversary is around the corner, so I may do a small giveaway to celebrate this milestone then. But anyway, thank you guys for the continual support and kind words. This journey has been so fun; you all are the best!

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So part of the rules of the meme is to include a photo of your current shelf. So here is my reading nook that I’m sure most have you all have already seen sometime or another. But something is different… yes! I tried to create a rainbow shelf. I did this in the beginning of August and was going to share it when I did a Summer Says post but that never got published… so yeah. Anyway, I kind of like it. At first, I had some serious second thoughts when all my series and authors got separated but it’s all good for now. I’m definitely not changing this set up for a long time, since this took me a couple of hours. I kid you not when I say I was sore the next day. LOL.

My #shelfie. LOL, I can’t believe I just typed that. XD If you want to enlarge the photo just click.

Exploring My Bookshelves: June

Hello! So another month of the summer has passed and I’m back with another Exploring My Bookshelves, a weekly book meme created by Addlepates and Book Nerds but adapted as a monthly one on here at Xingsings, post. You guys may notice that I’ve changed the formatting for this just to make it more fun and less text heavy (it ended up being as long as the previous ones. I will continue to strive to become more pithier, I promise). As always, all my answers to the meme are in bold and all the titles mentioned are linked to Goodreads. Anyway, I hope you like it!

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Here is an updated picture of my shelves. (Yup, those are library books on the bottom right. I don’t know why I even bother to put titles on hold and check them out when my TBR list is already long as it is.)

Exploring My Bookshelves: May

Hello! It’s the last Friday of the month so that means another Exploring My Bookshelves post. Exploring My Bookshelves is a weekly (but adapted as a monthly meme on here at Xingsings) bookish meme by Addlepates and Book Nerds.

This month I had a hard time finding a single title to fit each weekly topic so I ended up taking pictures of entire shelves. Because of this I didn’t explain each choice as well. Also, some of my pictures will show a lot of books in series out of order. It bothers me too, but I didn’t want to retake the pictures just for that reason. But for those of you that have OCD tendencies like me, rest assured, I did fix them on my actual bookshelves.

Okay, let’s get started!

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So part of the rules is posting your bookshelf. Here’s mine as of current:

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10. May 1, 2015: Your Least Borrowed Book

A lot of my friends don’t really read so most of my books haven’t ever been borrowed, but if they did read more, I think my shelf of adult, classics, and plays/poetry books would have the least borrowed books . Most classics are free on ereaders now or really cheap in the mass paperback editions. Also, my few friends that do read, seem to enjoy ya more.

Exploring My Bookshelves: April

I can’t believe it’s already the last Friday of April and my last day of spring semester classes. Lately my life’s been hectic with studying for finals, so I almost totally forgot to participate in Exploring My Bookshelves, a weekly meme by Addlepates and Book Nerds (but because of school I’ve adapted it as a monthly meme where I post on the last Friday of each month)! It’s super late in the day where I live, but I hope you guys enjoy! ^.^

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So it’s recommended to include a picture of your bookshelf, so here is mine as of how it currently looks. (It’s so different from last month, huh? Forever rearranging the shelves… I’ll never be satisfied.)

 

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6. April 3, 2015: Your Favorite Author

This is a tough one, but I just fell in love with the shadowhunter world since the first time I read City of Bones. So I’d have to pick Cassandra Clare. She’s definitely an author in which I’ve invested a lot of money in. I usually buy her books once they’re available for pre-order (well accept for The Bane Chronicles, I don’t own that just yet). I know TMI isn’t for everyone, but I loved Clare’s storytelling since reading it.

Exploring My Bookshelves: March

Hi guys, I recently decided to participate in a new weekly meme by Addlepates and Book Nerds called “Exploring My Bookshelves.” For this meme, Victoria creates a new topic each week to allow book bloggers to explore their shelves and share their findings with the blogosphere. Unfortunately, because of school, I’m going to have to treat this as a monthly feature instead, but I think it’ll still be just as fun! The very first “Explore My Bookshelves” topic was actually in late February, so I’m going to go ahead and include that one in this month’s as well.

Anyway, here goes!

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So I know it’s required/recommended to post your bookshelves, so here is mine. I’ll try to post a new picture each month since my bookcase is ever changing. 20+ books have arrived from bookoutlet since last week when I posted my Bookshelves post.

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1. February 26, 2015: Series You Own the Most of

I have the most books in the Students Across the Seven Seas (S.A.S.S.) series, with 14 books. But if you count the spin offs, The Clique wins with 18 books (13 primary works + 5 summer collection books).