So You Think A Book Is Just A Book?

Come on ‘fess up! How are your books arranged on your bookshelves? By author? By genre? By fiction titles on one shelf? Non-fiction titles on the next? Or, no order at all?(photo above)

Or maybe, they’re not even arranged in a bookcase, or bookcases? But just stacked near a reading nook (photo above). I know. Shame on me, but that’s because I didn’t realize till just yesterday that there’s so much more you can do with books than just read them.

Library According To Goop

Take home decor, for example. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, she of Goop fame. just revealed in Town and Country Magazine that she hired a bibliophile named Thatcher Wine (I kid you not!) to curate bookshelves in various blank spaces and empty corners of her Los Angeles house. The result as pictured above is courtesy of Juniper Books — which is Thatcher’s company.

Co-ordinate With Color Chips

In the Town and Country article Thatcher was quoted as saying: “My invention for the book jacket means that someone can have the complete works of Jane Austen but in a certain Pantone chip color that matches the rest of the room, or with a custom image.” (photo courtesy of Juniper Books above.) Or, as Thatcher adds: “Why settle for books that a publisher designed?”

Okay, I admit it, I was curious. So, I logged into Thatcher’s website. I absolutely adored some of his ideas. For example, look at this cookbook set (above) You can imagine how little spatters of bolognese sauce on the spines can only add authenticity to that look!

TwitterWorld Agog

As you can also imagine, however,  the article set the Twitter world agog — or at least my small section  of TwitterWorld where I follow many authors, book bloggers, reviewers and editors.

Snootily Snarky

Most of the tweets were not kind, but not as snootily snarky as yesterday’s article in the U.K.newspaper, The Guardian in which Marina Hyde writes in an article titled,  Meet Thatcher Wine, the celebrity bibliophile you didn’t know you needed. : “In truth, none of this literary interiors business feels a million miles from those fake antique book spines that can be bought by the yard, which for decades were widely accepted to be a sign of both pretension and philistinism.”

Laugh Or Curate

Well, you have to laugh. Or, start curating your bookshelves like I did.

How am I doing so far?