How do you arrange your books?

Robert K. Massie in his novel Catherine the Great writes that Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov, a favorite of Empress Catherine, decided “that [his mansion] needed a library to proclaim his new status.  He had shelves built and then called on the capital’s leading bookseller.  What books were wanted, he was asked.  ‘You understand that better than I,’ said the new bibliophile.  ‘Big books at the bottom, then smaller books, and so on up to the top.’  The bookseller unloaded many rows of unsold German Bible commentaries bound in fine leather. “

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