bookshelf

If you have a collection of books that is larger than one shelf, you've probably spent time categorizing (and re-categorizing) your library. When it comes to cookbooks, there are a wide variety of organizational methods you can employ: arranging books by author, by genre, by nationality, and so on. Inevitably, no matter how much thought you put into the scheme, you find yourself facing a conundrum: where does this particular book, which defies your carefully reasoned categories, properly belong? 

Bookstores aren't immune from this dilemma, reports John Sherman. He reminisces on the time he spent reorganizing the cookbook collection at a small independent bookstore in New York City. The exercise led him down an organizational logic rabbit hole. 

Sherman changed the store's basic eight categories into seven, in what he felt were more sensible groupings: reference, general, celebrity (including restaurants), baking, cooking method, special diet, and ethnic/regional/national (alphabetical by demonym). Naturally, a few books challenged these rules. Should Mark Bittman be shelved in reference, general, or celebrity? In the end, Sherman put Bittman into the reference section, "partly to stick it to his "Everything" and partly because a true celebrity cookbook has a photograph on the front."

Management quickly abandoned this system and resorted to something different entirely. The task led Sherman to question the whole premise of book categorization, prompting him to determine that "the task of organizing books is one that grows in complexity the more one tries to simplify it." You can read more of Sherman's musings on this topic at Literary Hub.

Have you found a satisfactory method for organizing your cookbooks? I currently use four categories: baking, reference, cocktail, and other (this system makes it plain to see where my passions lie). It is crude but it works for now, as my library isn't too voluminous. Share your cookbook organization successes--and failures--in the comments.