apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I NEED YOUR HELP!
I hate cluttered bookshelves. I love books so maybe that's why I'm so partial to having the books be organized and clean. My boyfriends mother is an AVID romance novel reader, and she has a TON OF BOOKS, all jammed into a 5' tall bookcase, double stacked (two rows of books per shelf) some standing vertical some laying horizontal, some toppeling over from other piles creating new piles within the shelves, and others are stacked on the floor next to the bookcase b/c they don't fit.

How can I help this poor woman - even though she hasn't directly asked for my help in this department - whenever I see that bookcase I want to take all the books down and trash the trashy cheap romance novels that you know she'll never read again, and organize the rest. Does anyone have any advice for me? Should I just "to each his own" and let her be?

Bring her to the library and show her how much money she can save NOT buying new books! I bet she only reads those novels once anyway.

Let her be.

Or accidentally knock it over, and volunteer to rearrange them. ;)

Get rid of books? You can do that??

I wish I had shed my packrat days much sooner... I saved every book from every class I took in university and have the sagging bookshelves to prove it, so this task might be a little tricky!

My books could use a little bit of attention... and my living room, with the 3 laundry loads lying around to dry, will be thankful if I do something about it. Now that I have curtains again it's a pity that it's looking so messy!

I'm finally living someplace where I can arrange my books in a way that makes them look good. I have a long uninterrupted wall where I've put all six of my bookcases. They're all Billy bookcases from Ikea although three are one colour and three another, it still seems to work. This allows them to not be patches of books that catch the eye and make that part of the room busy/visually dense.

I read a lot and will reread books often. People who do not know me find the number of books I have surprising while those who know me understand completely.

Generally, my advice for people who want to get involved in someone else's bookshelves is: don't do it. I don't know your boyfriend's mother, maybe she'd like to make her books tidier and just needs someone to provide a little impetus it to make it happen. Perhaps you could persuade your boyfriend's mother to get a larger bookshelf. When the books go into the new bookshelf, she'll go through them and possibly cull some and the books will be tidier.

Thanks for everyones suggestions. I like the idea of knocking it over by accident, but I think the suggestion to persuade her to buy a bigger one is more realistic. :)