Let’s Shelve This Topic

Bookcases may become an architectural relic of the past. With the advent of Kindle, e-books, I-books and whatever-the-vowel books, the groaning shelves of yesteryear are experiencing the incredible lightness of being. With bookstores fading from the streetscape, the readily available source of touch-me, feel-me tomes has been relegated to the jungle of Amazon.

Throughout my long career, two challenges have always reared their barking heads: Where do I locate the TV and how do I hide it? And where will the bookcases fit and how will I display the books? In the early autumn of my career, I am finding that the second challenge is becoming moot, or at least less essential. Yet, despite all this, we still demand bookcases.

The demand for linear footage of bookshelf storage is still high in childhood as parents still guide their progeny in the turning of physical pages. These brightly colored books in bubble-gum shades express a carnival of juvenile joy when displayed in bookcases.

Childhood anthologies by the likes of Dr. Seuss and Beatrix Potter provide collections that bring a uniformity to the shelves, which then can be easily scattered with everything from stuffed animals, toys, model tractors and planes, soldiers, Lego assemblages and perfume bottles. To make a pleasing effect, try grouping the collections tightly together and, if tiny in scale as so many are, place a book parallel to the back of the bookcase creating a backdrop for the Lilliputian collection.

Trophies, heavy shells, rocks and snow domes make great bookends. Award ribbons can be tacked to the facing of the shelves, once again clustered together, allowing their dangling ends to feather over any unattractive groupings of books. Almost every child is proud of their collections and no matter what, they will have an urge to display something as a statement of who he or she is.

I find tall bookcases to be less clunky, and shelves on brackets attached to the walls a breezier form of display. As children’s rooms can often be tight and floor space is at a premium, bracketed and suspended shelves accommodate the urge to display.

This primal urge to display one’s interests and persona certainly does not cease with the advent of puberty. If asked, I believe many adults would concur that a room filled with books is the most comforting and comfortable of all rooms.

Most homes offer at least a pittance of square footage allocated to bookcases. I cannot count the number of times that I have been asked to design libraries.

On those occasions I insist on including several practical elements. First, the bookshelves must be at least 1 inch thick or preferably 1¼ inches in order that the shelf does not bend under the weight of the books. And I advise the span to be no longer than 54- to 48 inches, with the latter being more reliable.

To read the titles, lighting is essential. With the availability of LED strip lighting—which can be as thin as a quarter and requiring little electricity and giving off no heat—the shelves can be ever so slightly routed out to accommodate this thin band and your problems are solved. LED lighting, though, is still dreadfully cold no matter what the proponents say, so try to stick to 2,800 Kelvin.

Another alternative is to employ wall-mounted picture lights. Attach them to the facing atop the bookcase so the downward-aimed light floods the book jackets.

Though not a fan of recessed lighting, a recessed light placed 15 inches out from the bookcases floods the volumes. Keep in mind that by doing this, though, the light is often shadowed by your head when you are searching out titles.

Another bugaboo I have is the overly generous depth architects and builders give to shelves, sometimes as much as 14 inches. If the shelves are too deep, the homeowner or designer must pull the volumes forward in order not to appear swallowed up by the bookcase. Then when one cleans them, or the housekeeper dusts them, the books can become pushed back into the cavernous depths.

Here are some of my rules on depth. Upper bookshelves for normal books can be as shallow as 9 inches. For paperbacks, 7 inches will suffice. For large art books, 12- to 14 inches is sufficient. I usually place these in a bumped or stepped out version lower down on the bookcase.

Paper book covers are designed to scream out, “Look at me!” By removing these, you will usually find a more subdued book cover, whose color can be grouped with others of the same hue, if you can abide books not grouped according to subject.

Once for a photo shoot, I rearranged my client’s cases in a pleasing, subdued progression of colors only to discover later that as a former librarian, she had painstakingly placed her reading according to the Dewey Decimal System. She was furious, deservedly so, and as a reprimand, I had to re-learn and re-file every volume according to this system.

For those who are faced with empty cases and long for the warmth of a leather-bound library, there are places that sell books by the yard. The Strand Book Store in Manhattan and numerous websites do this. But the Strand has gone a step further with rooms devoted to book jackets all of the same color—all white or all blue or all red. Besides beautiful old leather anthologies in English (Thackeray seems to be the most prevalent), the treasure trove famously filled with 18 miles of books also offers leather-bound books in foreign languages that meet the needs of a slimmer wallet.

If you view the shelves at many antiques stores across the country that sell breakfronts, secretaries and bookcases, you will often observe beautiful rows of nicely patinated, light caramel-colored volumes. As attractive as these may be, and as coveted as they are for their color, they are mostly from Sweden. The Swedish seem eager to toss their books out along with their Gustavian antiques (note to collectors).

Bookcases filled with books are the perfect spot to showcase great Aunt Mary’s porcelain maidens, Uncle Seymour’s beer steins or Cousin Louise’s pottery squeezed in between volumes. Photos look nice interspersed in unusual frames, but fewer photos please—and more books! Additionally, paintings look tremendous actually hung on the bookcase and a tiny lamp judiciously placed inside warms the entire ensemble.

Skillfully arranging your bookcase is not a difficult art, especially if you keep the picture frames to a minimum. Relishing your well-read tomes and filling your walls with a few treasured items is decorating at its most comforting and most reassuring level. Despite e-books, I-books and all those other vowel-books, there will always be a place in your home for the warmth of a bookcase.