Bookshelf

by Alex Johnson

272 Thames & Hudson A title that will appeal to those interested in book culture as well as furniture and interior design. Bookshelf is the first publication to take bookshelf design as its subject. From the conceptual Read-Unread Bookshelf (which weighs books read against those still to be started) to the multi-function Trick (a unit that transforms from shelf-space into a table and two chairs). Bookshelf presents over 200 inventive and experimental shelving designs in more than 400 colour illustrations that are sure to covet and inspire. Individual specification details are provided for each bookcase. including materials and documentation. and the accompanying texts by Alex Johnson. author and editor of The Blog on the Bookshelf. provide a fun and informative look at the history of the bookcase. as well as reflecting on how a n...

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Art, Design, Photography, Interior Design, Crafts

Hardcover

First published February 20, 2012

About the author

Latest book: Shed Manual (Haynes, 2019)
Next book: Edward Lear & The Pussycat: Famous Writers and Their Pets (August, 2019)
Next book after that: Menus That Made History (Kyle/Octopus, September, 2019)

I am a professional blogger and journalist, part of The Independent newspaper's online team in the UK. I run Shedworking (www.shedworking.co.uk) which inspired the book 'Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution' published by Frances Lincoln, The Micro Life (www.themicrolife.co.uk), and curate Bookshelf (www.onthebookshelf.co.uk), which was published as a book in 2012 by Thames & Hudson as 'Bookshelf'.

'Improbable Libraries', a survey of the most unusual and intriguing libraries around the world, was published by Thames & Hudson in April 2015 and 'A Book of Book Lists' in October 2017 by The British Library. My book on book towns around the world, 'Book Towns', was published by Frances Lincoln in March 2018 and 'Shelf Life, a selection of essays about books and reading, in October 2018 by The British Library. The same month, I brought out a literary trumps card game called The Writers Game with Laurence King Publishing.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

sometimes when i am forced to shelve the art cart in the morning, i get a little distracted. there are so many interior design books about how to live with and display the books you have. and they intrigue me, because i know there has got to be a better solution to how i live now than:







so i flip through.

and there's Books Make a Home: Elegant Ideas for Storing and Displaying Books, which is great, as far as drooly book-porn goes, but basically, its suggestions are:

1) have a really nice apartment

2) have bookshelves.

it is not particularly innovative. nor helpful to those of us in tiny apartments.

none of the pictures look like this:



or



and i admit i haven't read the text in the book, just ogled the photos, and reading its reviews on here, it sounds like a good book, as far as content and text. but i preferred the pictures in Books Do Furnish a Room. it seems more of a representation of how booklovers really live, and not how interior designers would have us live. it is messier, with book stacks on floors, and books that look like they have been read rather than purchased to match the settee, etc. real people, real books. but lower ratings on goodreads, for all of that, so maybe the text is not great. i dunno, i just shelve them.

but that's not really what i am here to talk about. i am talking about this book, which is about innovations in bookshelf design. if Books Make a Home: Elegant Ideas for Storing and Displaying Books had used some of these shelves instead of boring, fussy ones, we might have had a winner. this doesn't help me out at all, because if i could afford the bookshelves in here, i could probably afford a bigger apartment, but leaving that aside, let's just look at a few of my favorites, shall we?

yes, impractical, but phoar, right?



wonky but oddly sturdy all at once. like a drunken elephant.



cute thought, but you can't see the books!!



fun and green! and probably also impractical, but i am so drawn to cute things, practicality frequently takes a backseat.



a pyramid!ancient bookstoring secrets!



i like this one, which i am seeing a pattern here - i like asymmetrical "about to collapse" -looking things. LGM!:



this is how bees store their books!



this one is fairly impractical because you can only shelve a couple of books at a time, and it gives me a headache, but it is still more fun than regular shelves, right? like ribbon-candy shelving!



traditional shelves are great.i have shelves, i do, i just have too many books for them.



those of you who have looked at my GR pictures know that this is my dream-purchase:



an it even comes in black!!



but now there is a new kid on the block....



so i am torn. i suppose if i ever come up with enough money, i will make that decision then...

this one is also amazing - it is a staircase made into a bookcase





which would require me to gut my entire apartment and create a need for a staircase in the first place, sure, but my cousin is an architect, so i could just get her on it.

another one i do not like, just to mix it up!

[image error]

hidden books?? that's what i got now! no sale!

again - wholly impractical, but i kind of love this



and finally



because it contains the books, but leaves them just "messy" enough to look like real-people books and not magazine-cover books



what i have learned from this is that, apparently, this is not the way interior designers suggest you should store your books.



and, honestly, these are only the pictures i am willing to share. there are other stacks, other horrible, hoarder-looking sections of this room that i am equal parts ashamed and proud of. i love having all my books nearby, and i don't want to put them into storage, and usually i can live with them just fine without feeling like someone with psychological problems, but when the plumber came last night and knocked over several stacks because he didn't know the method-for-getting-through-them that i have mastered, it made me feel damaged and like a little cave troll. which i hope will pass. someday, someone will give me a bigger apartment, and then i will feel human again. maybe? please?

[Megan (ReadingRover) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes a fabulous array of amazing bookshelves. They come in all shapes and sizes. There is one to go with every type of decor and they are made of all different materials. This book is basically book shelf porn for bibliophiles!

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Visual porn of bookshelves and books, but really far too much on the side of bookshelves and not enough of books. What I mean is, they're all artsy and that's great as art but as a practical way of storing books? Most of them are totally unappealing.

There are some good thoughts -- a book rocking chair, for example, could store the books I'm currently reading so I don't have to get up if I want to switch...

[Claudia Sorsby · Rating 1 out of 5]

An excellent example of something that's a good idea for a blog, but a complete waste of time as a book. I paged through it in about an hour, thinking mostly, "Ah, yes, bookshelves for people who don't really read. Gotcha."

A consistent tipoff to this sort of nonsense is any sort of trompe l'oeil effect designed to make people think you own more books than you actually do, represented here by wallpaper made of photographs of actual bookcases. This is an especially dumb idea, since the problem book people generally face is a lack of wall/shelf space, and the idea of giving up a whole wall to fake books is hilarious.

A friend of mine (who, in fairness, did not yet know me that well) once recommended something similar. I gently pointed out that this made no sense for me, since I own so many books that the first thing anyone ever says upon walking into my place is, "Wow, you sure have a lot of books!" The sort of people who want to pretend they have more (or who can afford to give over a whole wall to one artistically shaped shelf) generally aren't book people in the first place.

I got this particular book out of the library, but I'd have been really mad if I'd actually paid money for it.

[Melodie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super-quick read with fantabulous photos of bookshelves and inspiration. Fun stuff. This book would be a lovely addition to ANY bookshelf. :)

[Sotiris Makrygiannis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm in need of a bookshelf to store the read and unread books that have stored at home. Wanted a bit of inspiration on what kind of design exists for a small place, larger library. This book is good on libraries that require big space as the function is not in focus but more the design and the asthetics. Having said that is a good book on european design a bit step far from the simplicity that IKEA offers but a good demonstration that Europe offers good design solutions.

[Amber Polo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A picture book for book (shelf) lovers.
Gorgeous photographs of artful book shelves for storing books not on your kindle. My favorite was "Set 26" (an entire alphabet of letter-shaped furniture.
Other fun photos feature book wallpaper and a bookshelf print dress.
Lots of ultra modern engineered whimsy. Most too asymmetrical and angular for my taste.

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little gem of a photo book for book lovers. Love the photos, which have inspired me to make some of my own customized shelves. The main drawback was the extremely small font of the descriptions. A much better design would have to enlarged the text adjacent to each photo.

I especially enjoyed:
p. 53 Varvis
p.119 Storylines
p.138 Sinapsi
p.139 Off the Wall (3D wallpaper)
p.146 Bibliochaise
p.195 Vintage Bookshelf Wallpaper

Recommended as a tidy gift for your favorite book lover, creative, or maker.

[Ninice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Je le note en Terminé car j'ai regardé 👀 chaque bibliothèque 1 à 1 le jour où je l'ai ht. Elles sont + ou - géniales c'est un achat (livre) que je ne regrette pas.
Je vous ferais un top 10 un jour (ne comptez pas dessus).
Acheté à la boutique du Tripostal pendant l'exposition Colors (rien à voir).

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s what I imagine one of your Pinterest boards to look like or include.

[Corné · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have to admit: this was a great present! This is a book about shelves and cases, but it makes you think about books, your own books, where you want to keep them, how you want to keep them... I have been sampling this book for months and getting inspiration every turn. But it is not just a catalog, obviously: a lot of thinking and very concise writing has gone into it. If you like books, get this one.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate design BUT if you have the clots of books stashed like I do on every shelf...with or without color coordination, then this book acts as reference only. I did explore the Chicago-based site for a portable bike-operated book library (www.bookbike.org.) Bringing books to the community is a great idea. There is a small free library near where I live that is based on the honor system that I, for the longest time, thought was a large low-level birdhouse. A pic is to be added soon.

[Nicole Normand · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover caught my eye so I bought this book on Amazon.
Although there are no explanation as how to make these beautiful shelves, there is a website for each designer for you to buy this design - some of them can be personalized.
The author put them strategically in order of appearance or second/third use for them.
According to the title page inside, there are 305 color illustrations. You will not find any b/w pictures here.
All of them have books so you know how they work. So many to choose from, they are all unique.
All have insights as to where the designer plucked their idea from.
Kudos to the author to have put all these together in one small book!

[Mandy Crumb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun exploration of what can hold a book with dimensions, websites and descriptions. The possibilities for displaying books is never-ending as this book so cleverly shows.
Want a bookshelf that looks like a cow? A bookshelf that is a chair? How about a bookshelf that has a built in light? This book will let you express your love for books in your house.
This is a fun book for browsing through. I really enjoyed it and will look for new ideas to display my home library.
Recommend for anyone who likes books!

[Clare Rhoden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this tour thru bookcase and book-storage history. A good coffee table book (if you'll pardon the pun) with some awesome and some wacky pictures. Definitely worth a look for bibliophiles - plenty of ideas. In fact, if you need a gift for a fellow bibliophile who is also into interior decoration or in the middle of renovations, this is it!

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it was interesting to see the different designs. The bookshelves themselves could have used more books, and some were not that practical.

[nidah05 (SleepDreamWrite) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something about book shelfs. And books about book shelfs. Interesting but good read.

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful. An incredibly various selection of bookshelves, from the practical to the utterly whimsical. These aren't bookshelves you can build or buy for yourself, it's a coffee-table book.

[Viann Calendula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and all the bookshelves in it. There definitely a few I would have in my own house. 5 stars and above.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mi

[Gina Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book filled with one of a kind bookshelves and book storage; also with some art inspired by books and bookshelves

[Casie Blevins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few genuinely cool ones but most are just ridiculous.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pure, unadulterated design porn for book lovers and modern furniture freaks. Born from the "Bookshelf" blog, it's basically hundreds of pages of beautifully photographed bookshelves by designers from around the world. Each has a little snippet about it, as well as the designer's website for those with the pockets deep enough to actually afford some of this stuff. As with so much modern design, the emphasis falls more on the aesthetic side of the aesthetic/functional spectrum. Which is to say, there's a lot of amazing design work here, but these are mostly shelves for people who like to use their books as carefully calibrated signals about themselves. There are some notable exceptions, such as the amazing closet "Staircase" shelves custom made by an architectural firm to maximize storage and access in a tiny apartment. The other thing I noticed is that quite a lot of the designs rely extensively on stacking books flat, which I had always been led to believe was bad in the long-term condition of the binding. But these are just side notes -- it's a lovely book, sure to raise the pulse of anyone who loves to show off their books.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This features a few truly inspired, beautiful bookshelf designs for the avid hoarder of books and it also has a large number of bookshelf designs that are so modern they are not practical for anything other than decoration.

So, if you are in the market for aesthetically interesting wall space filler this book has some ideas for you. If you are an actual buyer of books for the content and not the displaying potential this is not going to inspire much more than laughter at the small capacity for book storage that many of these bookshelves have. If you are just browsing this book because it is a book about bookshelves then you are sure to enjoy.

[Kevin Magpoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly I didn't read every single entry, but the pictures usually speak for themselves and stand well enough on their own anyway. I was rather pleased that the book highlights all conceivable types of book-shelving, from the practical to the artistic, with even enough that fit in both categories, to even a few facades that only give the impression of shelving. Is it ironic that Alex Johnson's "Bookshelf" belongs most deservedly not on any shelf but out in the open on top of the coffee table?

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, although it seemed to be more of a buyer's catalog or guide to art (there were was one instance where Johnson wrote, "Designer Erich Keller and Set 26 invite you to buy your favourite word" (p.106), which didn't jibe too well with me. I would have preferred a more impartial look at these cases. A lot of them are also nonfunctional. Only about a tenth are actually usable for a house or apartment, but they were still cool to look at, nonetheless. My favorite is perhaps the Conceal Shelf by Miron Lior and Tree Bookshelf by Shawn Soh.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5 star for this little book about bookshelves. The book had a high photograph to text ration so it was quick to read through. The book is by the guy behind the Bookshelf blog (http://theblogonthebookshelf.blogspot...) The book and the blog features images of many artistic and unique bookshelves. Everything from bookshelves that double as chairs or lamps to book shelves that are shaped like giant wheels and can be rolled across the floor. This is an interesting little book for bibliophiles.

[Violetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lively and lovely collection of some of the strangest and yet surprisingly elegant answers that various designers had when considering "what to do with all these books? " Some shelves are aimed at form, some at function. Some make a statement irrespective of which books are found on their shelves, while some are customized specifically to highlight the relationship between the books the shelf is intended to house.

A lovely reference work, in short, and the blog that inspired it should serve you well in your "bookmarks".

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book to look at...it's amazing what permutations the brain can concoct to design something radically new for a "bookshelf." The notations are interesting, too, for instance "when designing the displays for the bookshop in London, the owner took inspiration from the stalls of flea markets. The shelves can fold down to form light crates allowing for easy transport." Highly recommend this book for the pure joy of creativity.

[Elizabeth Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bookcase featured here, in photos and text, serve as wall art, room dividers, public sculpture, furniture, transportation and much, much more. This collection of designs reimagining the bookcase and questioning our relationship to books as icons, books as decor, books as cultural symbols, books as repositories of wisdom or imagination and even books as books is thought-provoking and entertaining.