Shelfability

The ratings debate never rests. I’ve heard the good, the bad, the whys and the whats. I hear you blog reader, I really do. I know that many of you didn’t understand why I took those little stars away. At the same time I know that many of you understood exactly why I had to.

I like ratings, I do. I like knowing at a glance what someone thought about a book. I’m lazy like that. They just don’t work for me, personally.

Through my blogging career I found myself looking back at those stars and pondering the questions: Does that rating really represent my feelings? Was that four star book better than that other four star book? Does that mean that I needed to go back at make that five star a four star, and subsequently make all my four stars three stars and all my three stars two? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!?

Numerical ratings may not work for me, but I’ve heard your pleas! I’ll be doing a “rating” of sorts, but I’m going to call it a category. A “shelfability” categorization. I could very well use the same argument with these categories as I did with the numerical ratings, but I feel much more comfortable assigning books to these categories vs. the dreaded numerical standard.

shelf-a-bil-i-ty
noun
the right of a particular book to grace your shelves….. or not.
Divergent has a very high shelfability.

DERIVATIVES
shelf-a-ble | adjective
shelf-a-ble-ness | noun
shelf-a-bly | adverb

I’ve broken this shelfability classification into three sections.

  • Covet
  • Acquire
  • Borrow

These three sections are not a reflection of the literary merit of a novel, but rather my overall enjoyment of reading the book.

Covet

These are the kind of books that you will want to buy two copies of. One that you can put in a very special place on your shelf, that no one will touch EVER and that you can easily admire on a daily basis. You will covet it. Then you will commence with shoving your other copy under the nose of everyone that you meet and make them read it. It was just that darn awesome.

Acquire

This is self explanatory. You want this book. You should buy this book (like right now) to live with all the other special books on your bookshelf. You love this book enough that you’ll want to tell people about it. It deserves a place in your personal book collection. This book is worth the $20 that you will most likely shell out for the hardcover copy.

Borrow

While this book has its moments, it just doesn’t have what it takes to earn that special spot on your bookshelf. I don’t know about you, but my bookshelf space is limited! This is a book that is worth reading, but you are better off borrowing it from a friend or the library.

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