Shelf-promotion: the art of furnishing rooms with books you haven’t read

Really weird that some people need a bookshelf curator to fill their shelves:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/08/shelf-promotion-the-art-of-furnish...

Well, I have a ton of books I haven't read, but that is down to endless TBR list and semi-delusion I'll get to all of them eventually ;)

As for bookshelf curators, I'm guessing some of them realized sooner or later someone will inspect what bookshelves contain, so you need someone to fill them with something you'd like to be perceived as reading. Very convoluted, I'd get a headache from worrying about something I don't actually care about. Either you want books, in which case you will pick them, or you don't need them at all is much more stressfree

But if you hire an interior decorator who insists on including shelves, what are you to do?

>2 SandraArdnas: Either you want books, in which case you will pick them, or you don't need them at all is much more stressfree

This is another case. These folk want to cultivate a bookish image without putting the reading hours in. I believe many of the rich filled the libraries of their great houses in a similar fashion long before Zoom and social media came on the scene. Lord Emsworth, or, at least, his sister, even employed someone to catalogue his library even though the only book he admitted to reading was The Care of the Pig by Augustus Whiffle.

>4 abbottthomas: Possibly, I’m sure some country-house libraries were filled that way by people who suddenly came into money, but I suspect that Lord Emsworth would have had quite a few bookish ancestors over the generations (the Blandings Castle library included a Gutenberg Bible, amongst other improbable treasures).

I was amused by the mention of the company supplying sets of classics bound in the appropriate Pantone colour — the Earls of Emsworth up to at least the mid-19th century would have had a contract with a London bookbinder who would bind everything they bought in the standard Blandings Castle style, with the Earl’s coat of arms on the cover.

Raise your hand if you have read every book in your collection. I’d be delusional if I honestly thought I’d ever get around to reading all the books in my collection. At least now that I’ve started buying more ebooks they take up less physical space in my apartment. An unread book is an unread book no matter how it got on your shelf. The Strand in NYC has been running their book by the foot program for years.

The Los Angeles example from the article is one I heard about. She is an interior designer but only upon the occasion of having a magazine spread from Architectural Digest did she send her husband to "go get 400 books" to fill some shelves. Since this is Los Angeles, the most likely store to accommodate them would be The Last Bookstore in downtown. Aside from their categorized inventory, they have a couple areas of books with decorators in mind. One is in a bank vault with vintage bindings and sets downstairs. Upstairs they have a large section of the mezzanine with books sorted by color. These are mostly modern novels and it really hurts the eyes (and the mind) to see a case filled with yellow or red or green dust jackets. Faced with that, my mind shuts down and I can't read the titles. I have found occasional gems in the decorator section but it's harder work than it needs to be.

I collect books because I can't rely on libraries getting or keeping many of the books that interest me. I'm a long ways from reading the 9,000 books in our collections. But they are there when I am ready for one of them. Umberto Eco, the great modern book collector was often asked by visitors if he had read all of these books. His answer was clever: "some of them twice."

For the past two years, especially, there has been a drive to make "prestige wall" backgrounds for Zoom and similar teleconferencing meetings. People who are paid to be on television were suddenly working from home. There were even commentary sites that noticed the evolution of the backdrops of these people. There was an article I saw that talked about the denizens of Washington, D.C. who were suddenly appearing on screens from their home and needed a suitable background.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/26/books-by-the-foot-washington-d...

There are many reasons to get, have, and read books. Some seem a little less honest than others but if it keeps booksellers alive and books in the minds of people, who am I to complain?

James

I've read most of the ones that count as 'mine', and my husband (and sons when they were growing up) have read nearly all of the others. Yes, there are some waiting their turn to be read, but they are a very small proportion of the whole. I've even read several of the reference books cover to cover. Most recently Wild Flowers of the Lobau. Although I will admit to skimming some of it.

MOVER: What a lot of books! Have you read them all?
ME: (groaning inwardly) Yes, most of them
MOVER: (a little later, as he packs) Why have so many got bookmarks in them?
ME: ….

There’s an obscure group here that makes bookshelf and bookspine peering sort of a hobby:

https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/1509/Bookspotting

>9 thorold: Our mover said, "What a lot of, uh, things." And obviously meant books.

My husband always leaves his 'bookmarks' in his books so he has something handy for next time. His answer to the 'Have you read all of them?' is, 'The ones I haven't read, my wife has.'

>11 MarthaJeanne: I think in my case a few were actually unfinished books I meant to come back to, but most of the markers were simply leftover from essays I’d been writing years before. I generally end up with a little pile of old bookmarks and faded sticky notes whenever I reorganise a shelf.

When my parents first moved before I was born, the movers asked where they wanted all their books. Mom said the living room. The movers said, "but there won't be any room for the decor!" My mom said, "That is the decor!" Of course she had read most of those. And probably intended to read or refer to them again.

I don't really understand people who want to have books in their house that they never even intend to read. Of course I have a little bit of trouble understanding people who don't have a "to read" list longer than their arm! I am a bookworm.

Perhaps I could rent out some of mine to serve as a background. Might be a business model in there for people who own too many books.

If I look at the pictures of people in front of bookcases, I often notice:

The books are all new hardbacks.
They are not in any recognizable order. Not by title, author, subject or even by colour.
Some books are upright, others are in stacks set diagonally.
There aren't any books set in horizontally on top for lack of space.

My bookcases don't look like that.

>15 MarthaJeanne: me either. My arrangement is higgledy piggledy cozy chaos.

>15 MarthaJeanne: I agree, but I did see one person interviewed tonight with books laying on top horizontally, and I thought about your post. LOL.

>15 MarthaJeanne: I once attended a seminar online and when it came time to ask questions, I asked for the list of books sitting to the side of his computer (they looked relevant to the subject). He was kind enough to send me the list after the fact and there were some I used in later papers. I can only imagine asking someone who rented or used decorative books and how they would handle that... ;)

In Packing my library, Alberto Manguel describes how his father, when they moved back from Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires, got a secretary to buy books to fill up the empty shelves of the house they were moving into. The books were acquired (apparently at random) from a variety of secondhand dealers and rebound in green leather. Those that were too tall to fit on the shelves were trimmed by the binder, so Manguel still has a few books where the top few lines on every page are missing...

I own books I never intend to read; some of them are just beautiful objects that I like to own, some of them I have my old beat-up childhood copy and a nice new hardcover copy, and then there's On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic, which just has a really satisfying texture on the cloth binding that I have never touched anywhere else. I have balls of yarn I will never knit with and books I will never read.

And I do have books pulled out for the sitting-room shelves as a deliberate display! Why wouldn't you? I also have a shelf that's just complete sets of things with matching bindings because that's just really satisfying.

I can't imagine going to a bookstore with a $1000 budget and buying books based only on how they look but that's because if you sent me to a bookstore with a $1000 budget I would be buying on both looks *and* content, why design an instagram backdrop for yourself that's just pretty when you could design one that's pretty but also if people squint they will be like 'wait is that a book on cooking with roadkill? is that a book on how to start your own country? is that a book on raising dinosaurs from the dead? who is this person?" But a pretty shelf is also its own joy.

I may never get around to reading all of our books. But they are all ones that connect with my or my wife's interests. In some cases we are building collections for research projects. I research and write about the Stratemeyer Syndicate and their 1400 or so books plus the personal writings of Edward Stratemeyer. I refer to them as I do this work but I can't say I am likely to read all of them cover-to-cover.

But would I get (and shelve) a row of books solely because the color complements the rug or upholstery? Never.

I do work from my chair in the living room and sometimes these books form a background if I have the video on. The books seen below are part of that Edward Stratemeyer (top 3 shelves of the 3 cases) and Stratemeyer Syndicate collections. This is one of about five rooms in our home with books.

James