Storing and Displaying Children's Picture Books

It's nice to be able to store children's books with the covers facing outward; this makes it easier for kids to find the books they want. The unit shown above was custom-made by the boy's grandpa, but there are products with the same idea that you can buy.




Jonti-Craft has a whole selection of Pick-A-Book stands - available both in single-sided versions (as shown above) and double-sided versions, in a range of sizes, materials, and colors.




Lakeshore Learning also has some nice book centers, such as the one shown above.




Guidecraft has this safari book display, as well as ones with a Noah's ark and circus theme.




Highsmith sells these boy and girl book holders from R·WIREworks.




And here is a wall-mounted option from The Land of Nod.




Or you could simply put books in something like a dishpan and put the dishpan on some shelves. You could use a nice basket for a somewhat classier look.

[first photo from Apartment Therapy: The Nursery]

10 Ways to Find New Homes for Your Books

You've decided to de-clutter your bookshelves - now what do you do with the books? Inspired by a recent discussion on the AnalogGTD Yahoo! group, I've pulled together this list.

1. Sell them at a used bookstore.

2. Sell them on-line, on Amazon.com or another outlet.

3. Sell them at a garage sale.

4. Give them to friends who would appreciate them - if you are sure they will appreciate them.

5. Donate them to a thrift store - many of these support good causes.

6. Donate them to a library, or a friends of the library group.

7. Donate them to a local organization that wants books. In the San Francisco Bay Area, some options include Books for the Barrios and the Children's Book Project.

8. Donate them to national organizations such as Books for Africa, Books for Soldiers, Operation Paperback (which also involves sending books to troops serving overseas), and Books Behinds Bars.

9. Swap them using one of the many on-line services, such as Bookins, BookMooch, FrugalReader, Novel Action, PaperBackSwap, Readers United, TitleTrader, WhatsOnMyBookshelf?, and Zunafish.

10. Register with BookCrossing, and "release your books into the wild" - leave them for someone else to find.

Updates from July 2007 and January 2008: Also see:

11. Chemotherapy Patients Could Use Your Books

12. Prison Libraries Could Use Your Books

Related Posts:
Clearing Out the Bookshelves
Book Lovers: Stop Reading Books You Don't Like
BookMooch: Give Books Away. Get Books You Want.

[photo from Jayna / MeiYing Chan]

Vivavi and Iola Design: Two Good Names for Storage

Vivavi sells eco-friendly furniture, and they have some notable shelving and storage products. The Kumiko shelving unit shown above, by Iola Design, is made from maple and solid laminated bamboo planks. Vivavi carries many items from the Iola Design line, all lovely.

Would These Bookcases Work for You?

I'm as enthralled as anyone by clever new storage solutions - but I've seen a few new bookshelves lately that just don't seem very practical.




1. The See-Saw Bookshelf [via Better Living Through Design]




2. Quad [also via Better Living Through Design]




3. The Piola wall bookcase [via Apartment Therapy: Los Angeles, which comments "like Tetris for your bound collection."]

Anyone else have thoughts about these?

Clearing Out the Bookshelves

Jon Carroll has a wonderful column in the San Francisco Chronicle about clearing out his bookshelves. Just a couple quotes, which illustrate two good reasons for deciding to part with a book:

"The Keep" by Jennifer Egan. A hard call. I liked the book a lot; I would recommend that you read it. Apparently, her "Look at Me" is an even better book, and gosh darn it I'm going to read it someday. But this is not an awards ceremony; this is a housecleaning. What are the odds I will read this book again? Zero. Does it have any sentimental value? Nope. Is the author likely to come to my home and surreptitiously look at my bookshelves? If only. So someone else should get a chance to read this book, and I should get 1 more inch of shelf space.

"The Map of Love" by Ahdaf Soueif. Booker Prize finalist! "Intensely engaging" -- New York Times Book Review. "An intense, impressive love story set in turn-of-the-century Egypt" -- New York Daily News. "Been sitting on my nightstand for two years and I have yet to make it past Page 51" -- Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle. I'm sure this is a fine book. I urge people who enjoy love stories set in turn-of-the-century Egypt to read it. But I must break through my denial. I have not read it, and I will not read it, and it must be cast back into the ocean of readers, where it may find more sympathetic eyeballs.

The whole column is definitely worth a read (as are many of his columns).

[Photo by Swiv / Hannah Swithinbank]

Book Lovers: Stop Reading Books You Don't Like

Once we're out of school, most of us have the luxury of only reading what we want to read. So I want to encourage you to stop reading any book at any point if you don't find it interesting enough. Our reading time is limited and precious; why fill it with books we're not enjoying?

Steve Leveen has a great article entitled Giving Up on Books, where (among other things) he writes about the 50-page rule that some use: "if the book hasn’t grabbed them by then, they give it the heave-ho."

On Matt's Idea Blog, commenter Karen S. says: I've decided to stop reading a book anywhere from the first page to 10% from the end. As soon as I realize "I don't care" what else the author has to say, I stop.

And Neil Aquino, in his blog TexasLiberal, has a nice little post entitled It's OK to Stop Reading a Book in the Middle.

In the wonderful New York Times article Divorce That Book, author Laura Miller speaks with a number of authors about their own reading habits, and when they give up on a book. Just one of my favorites: Diane Johnson, author of "Le Divorce," writes via e-mail. "I quite often lose books, leave them on buses or whatever," which she interprets as her unconscious relieving her of a duty when her conscious mind is playing the martinet.

And in response to that NYT article, reader Kitty Burns Flore writes that after shelling out $12-30 for a book, she feels compelled to try to finish it. But as even she admits, "...in the end, you've wasted not only a chunk of cash but too many precious hours as well."

[photo from Old Shoe Woman / Judy Baxter]

BookMooch - Give Books Away. Get Books You Want.

I've written about all sorts of swapping options before, including some for books, but BookMooch is a service I just learned about today. That seems a bit odd, since it's based in Berkeley, California - not that far from me. The interview with founder John Buckman is especially interesting, and explains why you might want to use BookMooch rather than selling books at a used bookstore or donating them to libraries.

And while BookMooch has its home base in California, it is specifically designed to support an international community of readers - not surprising, given the founder's background. You can search by country and/or language, the point system compensates you for the extra effort of sending a book outside of your country, etc. Over 100 countries are currently represented - some with many more books than others.

[Illustration credit Andrice Arp, courtesy of BookMooch.com - and isn't it a wonderful illustration?]

[via Ask MetaFilter]

Eye-Catching Shelving Units

Unto This Last is a furniture workshop in London selling directly to the public - and they make these honeycomb shelves that certainly caught my attention. But while the illustration shows some books in them, they wouldn't be practical for those with significant book collections.

[via silk felt soy]




Lots of people have been blogging about the CAVE, and I'll join them. It's made in Italy, and for now is only available within Europe. At 8,000 euros for the adult size, it's not something many of us would run out and buy, anyway.

[via Apartment Therapy: the nursery and Pink Mohair]

Penguin Donkey Bookcase

twentytwentyone in the UK has three versions of the Penguin Donkey: the original version (shown above) designed in 1939 to hold Penguin books, and two revisions designed to allow the donkey to be used as an occasional or side table. You can also see them at the Isokon Plus web site - Isokon being the company that made the original product. Isokon provides information about distributors worldwide.

The Victoria and Albert Museum provides the history of this unusual piece.

(via swissmiss, who in turn found it at Apartment Therapy : the nursery)

A Bookcase called Book

As someone whose major indulgence is books, I'm always attracted to new bookcases. Book comes from Lago, in Italy. To quote their web site:

It is an open shelving system, conceived above all to contain books.

Do you dream of a wall tree to climb on, to gather your books like precious fruits?
With Book you can do it.

Do you dream of a life in colour inside a house in colour and do you think you would like to have all the colour shades in the world in your bookcase?
With Book you can do it.

Do you imagine a bookcase that clambers up the wall, falling vertically like dominoes, or that takes on the features of a multicoloured maze?
With Book you can do it.

(Via Designspotter)

Rowboat Bookcase

This isn't the most practical bookcase - but it's sure interesting. It's built from Canadian cedar with mahogany trim. Besides this rowboat bookcase, there's also the classic canoe and the E.B bookcase.

Want some other boat-oriented storage? Try boat wine rack - or the wine rack with glass doors.

Bookcase Doors from Woodfold

I'm always interested in nice bookcases, because many of my clients have lots of books! (Yes, we do indeed sort through them and give many of them away - but still.)

Bookcase doors probably won't be the answer for many homes or offices - but they might be just what someone needs.

Organizing Your Bookshelves

I just finished some decluttering and reorganizing of my own bookshelves; I had new books and no place to put them, so some of the old ones had to go. Somehow, every time I face this situation, I seem to find a few more books that I can give up without regret.

eHow has some good advice on how to organize your bookshelves. Here is how it begins:

STEP 1: Mull over the role books play in your life. Do piles of books make you feel cozy and literate? Are your shelves rich with volumes of literature, drama and history that you know would make you a better person if you read them--but that you also know you never will? To some people, books are sacred and not to be thrown away: Are your old college textbooks collecting dust? Do you still have a shelf of Encyclopedia Britannica volumes? Once you understand why you have the books you do, you can begin to figure out what to do with them.

Julie Morgenstern's article on organizing your collection of books has a somewhat similar beginning:

1. To thy own self be true. Before you do anything, ask yourself, "Why do I stockpile books? Is it to have meaningful words nearby? To lend to friends? To build a reference library? To create a particular atmosphere? Do I plan to read the books or just have them in the background?" Your collection should reflect your intention.

Bookshelves from Reclaimed Lumber

RG Furniture Design makes furniture from select antique lumber reclaimed from historic buildings under demolition in New York City - how cool is that? Take a look at their bookshelves.

Found through dwell DesignSource.

Arranging Books by Color

This works for some people, and it certainly can look lovely. Found on Flickr courtesy of popurls.