Shelfies #6: Christina Orlando

My books are shelved by what I call "Ruoxi's Chaos Method", named after my dear friend and Hugo Award-winning Editor Ruoxi Chen, who is a chaos demon.

The method is to shelve books by how they're associated in your head – which could mean anything, really. For me, that means my books end up being grouped together in a few ways: loosely by genre, by pub date, and if I know the authors are friends with each other. The sapphic saffron trifecta are grouped together, for example. It's helpful in my line of work — related book recommendations/comps are right there on my shelf.

This shelf in particular is a vaguely dark academia/gothic shelf — there's undeniably a color theme going on here too. Overall: strong vibes. There is a sister shelf on the other side of this photo too, which features mostly YA gothic and dark academias. I have a Type. For the most part, these are the kind of books I hope people think of when they think of me. There are some forever favorites on this shelf, some texts I believe to be quite perfect.

A few highlights:

Babel by R.F. Kuang — there are 4 of the 7 copies I own on this shelf. I loved Babel so much, both as a perfect example of dark academia and as an anti-colonial rally, and went a bit apeshit wallet-wise. It's not my fault they put out so many beautiful special editions okay!!! I cannot be held accountable.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell — the first time I read this was digital, which was psychotic since it's such a huge text. The one pictured here is a first edition copy I found on eBay. Worth it.

Un mar sin estrellas by Erin Morgenstern — The Starless Sea is another forever favorite, and this is one of four copies I have. I picked this one up when I was living in Puerto Rico and deeply depressed. I can't read it but I love it anyway. I love all of them.

Christina Orlando is the Books Editor for Reactor, where they get to be a book nerd all day. Their work has appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, THEM, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Book Riot, and they are a 2021 Publisher’s Weekly Star Watch Honoree. Christina currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with their queer found family. Find them on Twitter at @cxorlando.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie, please let us know.