Bookshelves Arranged by Spine Color

It looks cool, but how do you find the book you're looking for? From Designverb.

Book Review: The Book on the Bookshelf

The ordinary is always more fascinating than we think. Chesterton knew this, and Henry Petroski knows it. Petroski's The Book on the Bookshelf traces the development of the bookshelf as a reflection of the changing nature of books, and in the process he reminds us that nothing is too ordinary to be written about. The book is part history, part personal reflection and part social science. From descriptions of medieval libraries to debates about where to place bookshelves in a library, Petroski writes in an engaging and warm style, peppering his book with illustrations, photographs and maps. I especially enjoyed the appendix, in which Petroski lists the many ways people organize their home libraries. They range from the obvious (author's last name) to the interesting (by color) to the just plain bizarre (by opening sentence!). The book is well worth reading, both for bibliophiles and for those who enjoy insights into the seemingly ordinary foundations of daily life. 1999, Knopf

The Book on the Bookshelf Reading Update

I've had very little time to read lately, but I have been able to snatch a few pages here and there of Henry Petroski's The Book on the Bookshelf. Here are a few interesting things I've learned so far: Early writers did not put spaces in between their words. Word separation became common only after printing was invented. I knew that the word Bible came from the Greek word for book, biblion, but I did not know that biblion came from byblos, from the Phoenician city that was a major exporter of papyrus. It took the skin of one sheep to make one page of vellum. And one of my favorite quotes: "Books spend a lot of time on bookshelves, hanging around near the curb, as it were, waiting for someone to come along with an idea for something to do. Books are the wallflowers at the dance, standing up but leaning on one another and depending upon one another for their collective status. Books are the Martyrs of Saturday nights, ending up in the same place at the same time week after week. Books in dust jackets are the queue at the bus stop, the line of commuters with their faces hidden in their newspapers. Books are the thugs in the lineup, all fitting a profile but with only one of them expecting to be picked out. Books are the object of searches." I can't wait for Spring Break next week, so I can read it more leisurely.

The Secret Life of Bookshelves

Bookshelves make for strange bedfellows. On my shelves I see Hank Aaron's I Had a Hammer next to Flatland by Edwin Abbot. Hmmm... I got to thinking about bookshelves because I'm about to start reading a book by Henry Petroski called The Book on the Bookshelf. Petroski's book is both a history and a tribute. He traces the development of bookshelves while at the time celebrating their usefulness. And, as he says, "The story of the bookshelf cannot be told without telling the story of the book, and how it evolved from scroll to codex to printed volume. These are not arcane subjects that have little relevance for for the new millenium; they are among the basic data of civilization that provide a means to a better understanding of the evolving technology of today and to extrapolating it into the future..." As I glance through the pages of his book I notice many illustrations and photographs: scrolls on shelves, rolling book presses, the first-floor plan of the Library of Congress. The book looks fascinating, and I'll give my review of it when I finish reading it. For now, take a look at this incredible picture by Thomas Eagle of Bassano, Italy: