Impossible to sort iBooks PDFs in Bookshelf view? I can drag and drop all day long, but it won't let me so much as touch the data source. Whether I'm dragging cover art around on the Bookshelf or moving rows in the List view's table, there is a major piece of missing functionality.
Titles and art will duplicate, leaving some PDFs apparently gone, but as soon as I leave the app (or even just change the view), it reloads and gives me the random-sort that I really don't want.
List view works for finding sometimg to read, minus the completely ineffective reordering action, but it has absolutely no influence on Bookshelf view, which is the one I want.
I did somehow manage to get one -- ONE of 41 PDFs -- to move. I'm amazed it hasn't reset on me.

Running iOS 5.1.1 on an iPad 1, not that it should ever matter with first-party software.


From Apple's website:

Can I rearrange books on my iBooks bookshelf?
Yes, you can rearrange books in your iBooks bookshelf by touching and holding a book, then moving the book where you would like it.  You can also sort books in iBooks by switching to List view and tapping either Bookshelf, Titles, Authors, or Categories buttons. PDFs are conveniently stored on a separate bookshelf.

Helpful.
Problem seems to have been insufficient RAM, since only iBooks was receiving a memory warning and dumping nonvital objects, or something which would have similar behavior.

It'd be nice if it iOS was a little louder about this sort of situation. Oh well.

Belated Edit: Closing some other apps in the background is what fixed it. Yeah.