Actually, this makes more sense to me than arranging books on the shelf by color, or wrapping them in vellum or shelving them backwards so that you can't see the spines.

Aha, here -- and I have to say, this strikes me as a VERY expensive way to buy books, which I guess is a boon to secondhand and antiquarian booksellers. Anyone willing to devote a little bit of time to this sort of project in a secondhand bookstore could buy one foot of books for much less lol.

https://www.strandbooks.com/books-by-the-foot-purchases-selection

English language antique books, $500/ft

foreign lang antique books, $300/ft

Victorian era books, $250/ft

Oversize coffee table art books, $250/ft

biographies, $125/foot

cookbooks, $175/foot

poetry, $125/foot

hardcover bestsellers, $200/foot

paperback bestsellers, $125/foot

classic fiction, $85/foot

Cookbooks for the win lol.

lol..ok..took me some time to find that quote..))

I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these

i believe that is a way to convince millenials that they are getting a better home.

So the next time I cull my books, I know what I should be do instead of dropping them off at the Friends of the Library booth. Seriously though, thank you for that great tidbit on the going rates for decorative books.

One of my favorite quotations, april, thank you.

Nah. Lots of people have not been reading, or not reading leatherbound classics (or poetry or cookbooks), for a long time : ) .

I suspect that cookbooks are aimed at the takeout crowd who would rather not have friends and family suspect anything lol.

Thank you so much for the great quotations, becksysharp.

I have a huge wall of books that I have read and collected over many years. And I dutifully culled and packed them in boxes for my last move. And I haven't read a one or bought a new hardback book in the past three years. Yes, I love looking at them, it adds a lot to the room as decor, but my failing eyesight is much more accustomed to reading on my tablet or computer.

Yes, reading is enjoyable, necessary and admirable, but the format can change.

havingfun

i believe that is a way to convince millenials that they are getting a better home.

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I remember hearing about the concept of buying books for fill in the 70's, so this isn't something to put on Millennials

In the book Class, somebody comments on being in the library perusing the titles and discovering it was filled w/books by the yard because the spines haven't even been cracked.

Back then it was done for the same reason today, move into a place w/library or extensive shelving that need to be filled

Frankly, I don't think there anything uglier than a large, empty, elegant home library with only a single shelf filled because the owners are purists.

Think of it this way, they books being created for fill are of quality and hopefully one day will be loved.

chijim, my favorite Home Decorating posts are the ones from folks who ask how to style their very empty bookshelves.

In the book Class, somebody comments on being in the library perusing the titles and discovering it was filled w/books by the yard because the spines haven't even been cracked.

If I recall correctly, according to Fussell that's the upper middle, or the American Dream class. Whereas one step down, in the middle class -- and here I had to locate my copy of the actual book on my actual (unstyled and far from empty) bookshelves lol -- " 'wall systems' are popular because they are more likely to contain stereos and TVs than bookshelves, always a danger because they may display books with controversial spines."

I remember hearing about the concept of buying books for fill in the 70's, so this isn't something to put on Millennials

Yeah, designers have had access to this for years and years, but not at $500 a ft(!).

ETA Oops, hit Submit too soon. Back in the 80s I found a book my mother had been looking for for years being used as a prop in a store display. I tried to get them to sell it to me, even offered to bring them another book with a similarly-colored spine, but they were so taken aback that anyone would actually want to read one that they couldn't figure out how to proceed.

beckysharp

chijim, my favorite Home Decorating posts are the ones from folks who ask how to style their very empty bookshelves.

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Better watch it, being on these decorating forums for years, you can be in the danger zone with some if you suggest books and ob jet are mixed together on those empty shelves.

Throw in hanging art in front of those shelves and that can set off a nuclear explosion. ;-)

i have never heard that one chijim. also in the 70s i believe the goal was to convince others that you owned and read all the books.

writersblock, i believe in this case you should have returned at night and stolen it. it would not have actually been theft you would have been freeing it. I bet on some nights it would actually have been left outside making your mind rest easier.

i forgot, now they are opening front yard book borrowing centers, i think i will try that with some.

We only buy books we are intending to read or craft books to help us with our various crafts! Why in the world would you buy books just to have more stuff to store?

You won't find many books in my house because I mostly read library books. Less expensive, lower carbon footprint, and if I don't like it I don't feel compelled to keep reading. I only have my own copies of some favorites that I re-read.

But if people want to use books as decor, that doesn't bother me a bit. To each their own and it does the books no harm.

“Millenials “ .... no offense to the millennials on here but I’m aghast at the complete ignorance of some I work out with at a gym & recently, while discussing a news item, none of them had heard of the holocaust or Auschwitz ... I guess they’re too busy checking their social media online. Sad....

@K Laurence--That's pretty bad!

a gift:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5428111/would-you-buy-this

I've read *so many* Victorian-era novels featuring the canonical young bluestocking heroine who hides herself in the family library and reads books collected and never opened by generations of her (generally much richer) relatives. ;) So I don't think we can pin this one on millennials...

Following.

The last photo looks like it could be in my library, as I used to collect old books, had a real problem for many years! The look, the smell, the illustrations, and MOST of the time the contents of. But many are so full of old fashioned pathos they are a challenge to read. ha I do have some treasures (to me) though.

I still can't pass a rack of old books in an antique or thrift shop without a quick glance at the titles or even flipping through them, but have to ask myself if I really, really need that book.

I read a lot of British books and I recall a comment that often large homes with very large libraries were simply purchased with the books on the shelves. I imagine that in many cases the libraries had been in the same family for generations before the heirs ran out of money to keep things going and decided to sell. In my dreams I think about buying one of these homes and spending years exploring all the books on the shelves. Sigh.

I am also gobsmacked. But it makes sense for I think that's what Joanna Gaines does -- she puts books on shelves like the examples -- and I hate it when they turn the spines back and all you see are the beige "pages". Books are decorative but they are also "books"!

I think of the writer who really was browsing the Paris bookstalls looking for a book, any book, bound in a particular shade of green for his bookshelf. He found one, and later started leafing through it, then reading it, and became attached to the story.

My dad's club has cabinets and bookcases in the clubhouse filled with books. Beautifully bound, leather, old, and most, oddly, in Danish. NO ONE around here, save for my dad, is Danish. But, they sure did look nice in the clubhouse.

I used to donate all the old books to the annual library book sale, but now I think twice about each book. They instantly throw out some volumes, including the RDs. If I'd known that, I'd have offered those up on a crafting site to be turned into boxes (the pretty bindings and edges and endpapers make lovely boxes). Anything better than the landfill.

I can't imagine buying 'books by the foot' to decorate. However, I wonder if that is much different than buying a world globe to decorate with when you never plan to give it a spin to locate a tiny, unknown country. Most of us go straight to Google! ;) I must admit, though, that I keep a cookbook on display in my kitchen. I buy ones with lovely covers at Half Price Books and change them seasonally. Let me be clear...I rarely cook any more, so I am guilty as charged!

For people with allergies, storing a lot of old books in a home can be an issue. The books are constantly expanding and contracting by absorbing the moisture in the air and then drying out. They can get moldy and you'll see almost microscopic bugs inside. Almost any paper can attract bugs. When someone with asthma opens an old musty book, they can get sick within 10 minutes. I love books and have been an avid reader my entire life, but I can't hang out at a library or a used book store for long.

This is strange but I get it. I love seeing shelves decorated with books...very homey indeed. I however, have ready many a book but cannot decorate my shelves with them as they are all on my Kindle :)

Havinfun, Little Free Libraries are great, https://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/. We have quite a few in our neighborhood- some are not affiliated with the Little Free Library organization- others are. Most are not for borrowing though. Some allow you to take a book and keep it, others prefer you take a book and bring one of your own in exchange.

Here is one in an Eichler type housing.

K Laurence, there are people who did not learn about the Holocaust in school in America? And of all the lessons you could be forgiven for forgetting, learning about that event didn't stick? I am truly bewildered and horrified at the thought this is possible.

(I thought of building something like this. A little house for books. On our front yard.

I'm so not neighborly. as I age, I'm, like, not into contact. I've no energy etc. I'm hiding. I'm friendly and all-but.

That'd be my way though. Of connecting..)

April, Little Free Libraries are everywhere these days. It's such a great concept.

A town near me has over 100:

https://littlefreelibrary.org/one-small-town-over-100-little-libraries/

Rita, something has been niggling away at my subconscious since you posted this -- too much to do here on the farm with three older kids with farming and 4H activities and people starting school and new jobs in the fall, and I'm still trying to get us moved in to our new house, books and all lol -- and it finally worked its way up and out : ) .

Books by the foot can be discouraging, but have you read about Kinsey Marable? He's a private library curator -- you tell him what you want, and he will search and buy books for you, often out of print books, first editions, and other rarities. So not books by the foot, but fairly instant library. I have to admit, I'm rather annoyed I didn't realize when I graduated from college that this was a career option! Especially because I seem to have a fair amount of the OOP books (one reason why a Kindle will never work for me) he posts on his Instagram, sigh.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32890006

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/garden/09shop.html

Also, for anyone who enjoys this sort of thing, I thought I'd mention a title languishing since last autumn in my online shopping cart, hoping for justification and a price drop, is "The Country House Library" by Mark Purcell, who is deputy director of the Cambridge University Library and before that was libraries curator to the National Trust. Published last October by Yale University Press, so while it looks like a coffee table book, it's a well-researched look at the subject. The Washington Post has a good review, from which,

With the rise in the wealth of the aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries, the libraries became such an important massing of fine books that some owners employed librarians. Or, as the 6th Duke of Devonshire put it, "I am not worthy of my own collection."

For some, rare books became an addiction. In the early 1700s, Edward Harley, the 2nd Earl of Oxford, went book batty, amassing 7,639 manuscripts, more than 14,000 rolls, charters and legal documents, 50,000 printed books, 41,000 prints and "an extraordinary 350,000 pamphlets," Purcell writes. Harley's extravagance eventually led to his ruination and the dispersal of his great collection.

Later, bibliomania became more widespread and created a bubble. At a frenzied auction in 1812, a nobleman named the Marquess of Blandford bought a supposedly unique 1471 edition of "Decameron" for an eye-popping 2,260 pounds. (At around the same time, Jane Austen sold the copyright to "Pride and Prejudice" for 110 pounds, Purcell writes.)

The greatest collector of the age was the 2nd Earl Spencer, a forebear of Princess Diana, who needed five libraries in his home at Althorp House to contain his books. That collection was sold in 1892 to the widow of a Manchester cotton magnate. The moneyed industrialists became the new bibliophiles. The library was a mark of pedigree that "no arriviste could do without," Purcell writes. Conversely, shifts in the economic and tax landscapes depleted the wealth of the blue-bloods. Selling off the incunabula was, as Purcell points out, a lot less obvious than unloading the Gainsboroughs and van Dycks.

It is easy to understand why an antiquarian book holds so much appeal. In what other object is there so perfect a confluence of art and craft, of mind and hand? Such books are tangible testaments to the skills of the engraver, the printer, the bookbinder and even the tanner. Today's keyboards and screens, with all their promise of data, can only be touched. A rare book, by contrast, is felt.

Yes, a book about books, and libraries. Take that, minimalists!

When I first visited LA, a friend took us to Getty museum, for a day

They had this exhibition...medieval prayers books..I forgot the proper name..one had to look in the magnifying glass to see all the miniature details..handwritten(obviously..the print wasn't invented yet)..brilliantly illustrated..

That was one of the most memorable exhibitions in my whole life. It hit me on a physical level, when your chest goes all tight -it was like listening to organ music. So complex, so unstoppable in its living beyond any borders of countries and cultures and centuries.

There's huge power in books...power we attribute to them..what they become to us. And together with that-there's strange independence to them..as it happens with any creation. It's out of your full control. It almost has a will of its own.

there's huge symbolical power in burning them too I guess-which history confirms..

Very very common. Less common but another service that actually exists, is one where you contract with a bookstore to send you X amount of books, on a regular basis sometimes within a specific genre or two, that will keep your shelves looking up to date. I was the 'girl' that did this for a few well-heeled clients when I worked in a major city bookstore decades ago.

Oh, beckysharp the rabbit hole you have sent me down! No, I did not know about Kinsey Marable.

April, those kind of illustrated prayer books are absolutely magical to me.

hollybar, that must have been a wonderful job, like curating reading lists. I always pay special attention to the staff picks and reviews at my local bookstore; the staff are incredibly thoughtful and well read.

There's huge power in books...power we attribute to them..what they become to us. And together with that-there's strange independence to them..as it happens with any creation. It's out of your full control. It almost has a will of its own.

there's huge symbolical power in burning them too I guess-which history confirms..

And the ideas contained within those books have their own power, ideas we learn, absorb, consider, enhance, and share. Facts and history, and also philosophy and the best of classic fiction that makes you think and understand the human condition. All of that gives the reader great independence. That power and independence is considered a good thing by many -- one reason we hear lifelong learning encouraged so much -- but they're considered quite dangerous by others, as April mentions (book burnings) and also knows firsthand from her own history. I remember when I first learned in grade school that photocopiers were not only uncommon but carefully guarded in the Soviet Union.

hollybar, am thinking more of Marable's business model, which involves posting pictures of an oop book, writing about it in breathless J. Peterman style, listing a price of several hundred dollars, and then having followers fight to buy it : ) . Though that business model is greatly helped by the very useful business and society contacts from his previous career in investment banking and hobnobbing, and I admittedly am not at all a hobnobber : ) .

I know what this looks like, but the original plan was to have a balcony across the front of the bookcase with a small comfy chair, reached by a staircase. Well, that was many years ago and has never come about - yet. So I have this huge bookcase of interesting books that I have to go to the garage for a ladder so I can peruse.

Other old collections in cases, under and on tables.

I use a lot of out-of-print books in our home schooling. To prepare for the school year, I obsessively searched ebay and etsy for the books we need. When I saw people were selling groups of vintage books on ebay according to color with no searchable titles/authors I felt nauseated. I spend countless hours trying to fill our little home school library with good books, they've become precious to me.

An aside about Little Free LIbraries... Here in the Portland metro area they're everywhere, but there are also some shared poetry stands around. A little stand in the yard that has a printed poem of the week that you can grab and take with you <3

Beckysharp, of course you are not a common hobnobber, you are an exclusive elusive, equally at home in the wilds of the tundra and the smart salons of Paris, an international bon vivant with an evolved sense of discernment that was almost,only almost, matched in previous centuries by James Abbott McNeill Whistler or the divine Carolina Ottolina de Neverwassuchaone! All this with a head for books and a bod for.. ...oops, so no J Peterman blurb writing in my future. But I'd bet I would far prefer to read the books you chose to Marable's.

schoolhouse-gw great spaces! I would likely leave the ladder in the room.

I've seen it before, but it's not for me, even if I had money coming out of my ears. I like to see the cover, tho I take the dust jacket off when I'm reading b/c depending on where I take my book, it could get ripped etc.

i think if i had lots of money at least one piece of furniture would be made of books. vive le book!

benge - i love that, we should make that april's job.

omg, go to the dr and the place is drowning with talk! thanks for all the comments about the libraries, and yes i did realize that it was to keep but i also heard that many people return them anyway.

you know i realize about the life long learning. the books i read as a child were often very old. the water babies was highly political and i never realized how much of my life was affected by the beliefs of that book.

have any of you ever read the art thief?

The day will come, I'm afraid, when people decorate their book shelves with a single Nook or Kobo reader.

tell us again, great gramma, about those things you had when you were little....books?

"Why do they call them Olympics?"

Gosh, I probably have an absolutely worthless motherload of expensive books.

I'm aware that some do it for decor, or staging. Always pains me a bit. I have a nice little library, don't know the dimensions. But I have three 4 foot wide shelviing bookcases- often stacked double deep with books. And used a bunch of my old encyclopedias as props to lay down boards for more shelving. Newer ones and stocked on the shelves.
And my library is chock full of a lot of ones I keep and re-read.. and a wonderful influx of books I haven't read yet.. and a few bags of books in donation bags to the local library, book drops, and medical clinics that can always use a few more take and read copies for free.

And my cookbook collection. 12 feet of shelves. All well loved, and used.