Tending Your Bookshelves

The Wifey and I aren't so good at this (and, I must admit, I'm better at it than the Wifey); our recent solution was to buy some taller shelves to put more books on. Laura Miller of the New York Times was forced into the position by a need for repainted walls. Like a fine English garden, you need to do some pruning and cultivating for a book collection to remain clean, pretty, and wanderable. Your criteria for what's a weed and what's a flower is a matter of your personality.