November 2024
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    It makes much more sense to me. Let’s say you have a trilogy which consists of 9 numbered segments of equal length. Each book has exactly 3 segments. You’ll obviously read them in this order:

    > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

    However, if you place them on a shelf from left to right, they’re (EDIT: I’m referring to the segments, not the books) being stored like this:

    > 3 2 1 6 5 4 9 8 7.

    This obviously doesn’t apply to books in languages which are read from right to left, but I’m pretty sure most people here read English books.

    I noticed this when I looked at the spine of the book I’m reading right now, and saw that the cracks started appearing on the right hand side.

    What are your thoughts on this?

    ***EDIT: I don’t think I managed to explain what I meant properly in my post.

    Place a book on a bookshelf and look at it. You’ll see that the front cover is facing the right side, while the back cover is facing left. You read a book from the front cover to the back cover, and not the other way around. So if you place the books in a series from left to right, the page on the very left hand side will be the last page of the first book and the one on the right side will be the first page of the last book. If you place them from right to left, however, the rightmost page is the first page of the first book, and the leftmost page is the last page of the last book.

    This is honestly very nitpicky and unnecessary. I don’t arrange my books like this. It’s more of a r/showerthought.

    by MizuStraight

    8 Comments

    1. Colleen_Hoover on

      Counterpoint: it’s fine.

      I keep books by the same author in order of publication date. I see what you’re saying but I’m not reading my books backwards anyway; I’m reading them in a sensible way, so I would never end up reading a book

      >3 2 1 6 5 4 9 8 7

      unless, I guess, I wanted to for some reason.

    2. >However, if you place them on a shelf from left to right, they’re being stored like this:

      3 2 1 6 5 4 9 8 7.

      wtf are you talking about?

    3. InvisibleSpaceVamp on

      Huh? My library is sorted from left to right and all the series are in perfect order. The only potential controversy could be the way my husband sorted our Discworld.

    4. JenniferMcKay on

      I feel like a better solution to this frankly nonsensical problem would be to store the books with the spine facing inward.

    5. I see what you’re saying, but why would anyone care that part 1 of volume 1 is pressed up against part 6 in volume 2 while they’re on the shelf? When they’re on the shelf, surely all you need to know is which book it is. Place them right to left if that actually bothers you. Or pile them with book 1 on top.

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