My Book Collection- Books I Keep and How I Store Them

As many of you know I’m an avid reader. SO far I’ve read 68 books this year, 70 last year, and 53 in 2018. So you’d think I have bursting bookshelves…. nope! I actually hardly own ANY of them in my book collection! I fly through books so fast that I prefer to get them from my Library, church library, Overdrive, and Audible. If I purchased every book I wanted to read I’d go broke. Sometimes I will snag a paperback for $2.99 from Goodwill, then donate it back to Goodwill or a Little Free Library.

Criteria to Keep a Book in my Collection:

For me to keep anything in my book collection it’s got to meet a few criteria:

• Self help or Devotionals that I plan to reference or re-read
• Home Decor and DIY Books
• Cookbooks
• Travel Guides (I like being able to earmark and bring on trips)
• Good Kids Books… because reading to your kids is precious. My mom kept most of my childhood books and I love and appreciate that she did and I plan to do the same for my children!

I guess you could say this is how I “Marie Kondo” my books. So now that you understand my criteria to keep a book, let’s talk about books worth keeping! Here are some of my favorites that grace my bookshelves! **Contains Affiliate Links**

Self Help or Devotional

• Shadow & Light- A Journey into Advent by Tsh Oxenreider (I’m excited to go through this one as a family this December)
• Foundations: 12 Biblical Truths to Shape a Family by Ruth and Troy Simmons
• The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron (My constant Enneagram reference)
• Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison (Probably my favorite racial reconciliation book)

Home & DIY Books

• Welcome Home by Myquillyn Smith (I just ordered this during an Amazon book sale!)
• Homebody by Joanna Gaines
• Make Something Good Today by Erin and Ben Napier (Probably my favorite HGTV couple)
• Hand Lettering for Relaxation by Amy Latta (I’m TRYING to improve my hand lettering and this is a fun book to work through)

Cookbooks

• The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Come and Get It! by Ree Drummond
• Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines
• America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook (My go-to for any cooking questions)
• The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond (All of our family’s favorites have come from this one)

Travel Guides

I’m always scheming our next road trip! Did you read about our cross country National Park trip?!

• New York Times- 36 Hours USA and Canada
• 100 Drives, 5000 Ideas
• Wisconsin Day Trips (Obviously you’d want to have one for your state!)
• 1000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Shultz

Children’s Books

• If I had a Little Dream- by Nina Laden (This is a book with BEAUTIFUL illustrations)
• You Belong Here by M.H. Clark (Such a loving message for any child)
• Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton (I LOVE hearing my husband read this one to any kiddo)
• I love you Through and Through by Bernadette Shustack (One I’ll have memorized forever, also my go-to baby gift)
• Press Here by Herve Tullet (So much fun for preschool age kids)
• The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt (An adorable story that is even funny to adults!)

When it comes to storing books, each of my kids have a bookshelf in their closet, and the rest of our books are on this Corner bookcase between our kitchen and dining room. I love how the bottom has doors so I can hide the mess of Children’s books that we keep down there! Board books are stored in a basket on the bottom shelf so that toddlers and little kids can easily access them. Our annual photo books are also stored on these shelves, which is the big white stack that you see! I also use these shelves for displaying a variety of items (marker jar, sea shell collection, baskets, etc,).

My Book Suggestions:

If you’re not interested in building your book collection, and are only looking for a good read, here are my suggestions of my favorite books from the last three years:

• 2019 Favorite Books
• 2018 Favorite Books
• 2017 Favorite Books
• My Favorite Book Club Suggestions (and the books I’d Skip)

Thanks for reading! I hope that you enjoyed learning about what’s in my book collection and how I store books. Maybe I’ve inspired you to add a few good ones to your shelves, or maybe to get organized and purge a few!