In Which There is No Love for the Rainbow Books

Who knew there'd be such passion (and downright disdain) for my color-schemed bookshelves. Several emailers wanted to let me know they've lost respect for me as a reader and a writer because I've arranged my books in such a way. Really? Here is where I must cry "too serious."  Are people truly that upset about this to send in less-than-nice emails? I find this very surprising. And silly.

It was a funny thing I did - to save myself time a few months ago when the task of re-shelving all my drywall-covered books seemed daunting and I had to get them off the floor before the construction crew could move on to other projects.  I'm now sharing the not-so-stellar results. 

Alas, it seems, I'm not the only one who has done so: there is an entire "Rainbow of Books" Flickr pool dedicated to the cause.  You get even more results by searching on rainbow + bookshelf.  I might feature some of this rainbow book porn throughout the week.  I. Just. Might.

Now - I hear you.  I, too, have felt that people who use books as props in their home (cretans!) and those who use books as decor (charlatans!) without ever really cracking one open are not to be taken seriously...or even considered.  If you have read this blog for any length of time (or even, I would venture, for a week or so), it should be dead-obvious that I not only love books, but read them in healthy doses. Enough said. I think. We'll see what kind of emails come in today.

If the flack from my arrangement decision simply becomes too much, I can always blame Bud Parr who gave me the idea in the first place. Notice my comment from a year ago. I, too, thought it seemed insane.

Rainbow books by chodta via Flickr (which makes my shelves look like child's play)

Comments

[Bookdwarf]

I think it looks great. At least you know if it's a Penguin paperback, you can find it under "orange". I think I have those same shelves too---Ikea right? They're great, I can double stack the books!
Ignore the naysayers. They're just cranks.

[Capybara]

I love the organization. Any true book lover cannot help but fetishize the book itself, the object. This makes a poem of the books themselves. And also, as opposed to a public library, the organization of a private library should be mysterious, and lead one to have to search and rediscover other books when on the hunt for the book presently sought.

[Sycorax Pine]

I am sorry to hear that you have gotten less than kind emails about your rainbow book organization and its woes. It seems to me that this shows a distressing lack of whimsy.

But I really wanted to comment more generally in defense of books-as-decor. What about those of us for whom love of reading, and of the book as an object (both an art object and the relic of an enjoyable experience), makes a wall of books the finest decoration any home could have? Surely it is only the very ascetic bibliophile who could object to that!

[Melanie]

But... But... But... I was just joking! I even used the universal emoticon for "don't take me seriously" [which is this --> ;)]

[Felicia]

I adore the organization! It's vibrant, welcoming and beautiful. Makes you want to pluck a book right off the shelf. Ignore the inane snobbery. Who cares if your books are arranged by hue? Are you any less passionate about books because of it? People apparently have too much time on their hands.
Cheers, f.

[RWB]

Since books are unique discreet items, anyone with a sufficient number of books needs to have an organization system. People go to school for years and get masters degrees to become certified experts in book organizing.

But you have shown a problem with organizing your books--that the colors become a jumble of white noise. Another problem I find is that I often have to shelve very small books next to very large books (mass market paperbacks next to art books, for example), which can be bad for the books (bent spines, etc.) and looks bad as well.

Here's my suggestion for a solution. Assign each book its own unique RFID tag and build a reader into your shelves. That reader would be connected to your computer. So you could arrange your books in the most esthetically pleasing way (maybe by color or size of some combination of the two), and when you wanted to read a specific book, you would use your RFID system to tell you where it was at that moment.

[erin]

I think it looks breathtaking, and why not make books breathtaking on the outside when they're often breathtaking on the inside?

[Biffles]

Books have a variety of personal meanings to the reader and ought to be arranged in such a way that means something personal. If I had the time and space, I would rearrange my books frequently -- I particularly enjoy moving biographies around like guests at a dinner party. Right now the recently-departed Brooke Astor is sandwiched between Richard Burton and Bebe Buell. I like your rainbow arrangement...the blue on the bottom reminds me of Nancy Drew books...

[callie]

Melanie -- No worries. I said "emailers" for a reason. Some people emailed but didn't comment...and wow. While I did not know it then, I'm also quite pleased to have now learned the universal symbol for "don't take me seriously"!!!

RWB -- Oh my goodness! If such a thing could be programmed, installed and maintained at minimal cost (or, you know, free), I would do it in a heartbeat. You are a man with vision. Glorious vision.

All -- I think you're turning me around to the notion that the books I love so much SHOULD be arranged beautifully. But I'm oh so tempted now to arrange them as dinner parties...I blame you for that Beth! (nice to see you over here btw!)

[fathima]

truly, i was going to make a comment that was unique, but the first commenter made it first, but i will say it anyway. i used to arrange books by publisher and by colour, and which came first in my internalised scheme of organisation i cannot tell: the hue or the house.

then i arranged my books by age-appropriateness. i have, for instance, The Water Babies (a horrible book). i refused to put it next to Bleak House. so it sits at the bottom of the shelf.

now it's mostly arranged into four basic categories: poetry/plays, fiction, nonfiction, unread.

but your arrangement is much prettier than mine.

other things:
- "distressing lack of whimsy" - this is something i must make space and time to say out loud.
- i got to your site through Felicia's site and i got to her site through Worsted Witch. i find people like to know these things.
- i suspect i will be lurking here a lot. after all, you write about reading. what's not to love?

[e]

A few weeks ago I wandered into Brand Books in Glendale and noticed they'd turned a set of shelves into a colorburst of books. When I mentioned how lovely it looked, the clerks said it had been that way for weeks but this was the first time anyone had bothered to comment one way or the other about them.

So maybe we see what we want to see.

Anyway, they're your books; enjoy them how you like. I used to organize mine according to when/where I'd gotten them, so I might have 12 random titles piled next to each that only I knew I'd gotten on a trip to Belfast or New York or, well, Brand Bookshop.