I confess that when I take a Zoom call, I rotate my chair and my laptop 45 degrees so that my head is framed by books. This is because the straight-on view is of an office full of piled up junk.
The bookshelf background is tidier, but you can’t tell much about me from the titles, because I haven’t read any of them. They’re not my books – just my share of the general household burden, most of them paperbacks bought by my wife before she met me. But if you’re impressed by seeing the Complete Prose of Pushkin above my left ear, I’m also OK with that.
The Pushkin illusion is perhaps an unintentional example of Bookshelf Wealth, a design trend cited by both the New York Times and Homes & Gardens magazine, and described as a “whole home vibe” by TikTok interior designer Kailee Blalock. It’s an understated, homey look that seems to involve getting some books and putting them on shelves.
Of course it’s not that simple. “These aren’t display books,” says Blalock. “These are books that have actually been curated and read.” In that case Pushkin is ruled out on both counts. But what do your curated books say about you? How wealthy are you, bookshelf wise?
1. Leaning books, lying down books, books competing for shelf space with non-book items
This is meant to convey casual intellectual abundance: my books, they just get everywhere! It’s curated overspill affected by someone who has never known true overspill – a book on its side takes up the shelf space of at least five upright books. When you really have too many books they end up wedged in so tight you can’t get them back out. This looks more like you’re halfway through packing up to move house, which is very now.
2. Shelves filled with antique, leather-bound volumes
No one will ever believe you’ve read these, much less curated them. It just looks as if you’ve tried to purchase cultural credibility by the metre. If that’s the effect you’re after, you’re better off slicing off the spines and gluing them directly to the walls.
3. Artfully arranged ‘to read’ piles
For this vibe, stacks of brand new hardcover volumes are placed on available surfaces in a manner that implies that you have a pretty full dance card when it comes to reading. Add in the occasional uncorrected proof to suggest you get sent a lot of books for free because your opinion has currency. Refresh the piles from time to time by hauling a load of books over to that free bookcase they have in the train station.
4. Alphabetically shelved books
Nice effort, try-hard, but if a book has been properly curated and read, it need never be reread. Arranging your books in a way that implies you might want to find them again suggests you just don’t get this. Besides, many sequentially alphabetical books just don’t look right together. Use your eye, not your brain.
5. Coffee table books
A weird idea, books to go on tables expressly designed for coffee. And coffee table books – generally oversized volumes full of photographs – tend to give you all the pleasure they’re going to give within the first 30 minutes of purchase. Therefore, the coffee table book primarily exists to occupy guests you intend to keep waiting. If that’s what you’re trying to curate, go for it.
6. Large format books, stacked a foot high or more, with a lamp perched on top
Here reading material becomes furniture: a book coffee table. As a decorating technique, this puts you in that sweet spot where curated design meets the kind of hoarding that requires intervention.
7. A highly edited selection of history books with short, boldface titles
These are especially important to have behind you when you’re being remotely interviewed on TV. A fat book with something like The Wealth of Money or Hitler Did It written along the spine conveys instant expertise.
8. Your own book, displayed repeatedly across several shelves
This may look like naked self-promotion, but what you’re really advertising is the fact that you ended up with a load of unsold copies, way more than will fit in your garage or attic. This is also what you’d see if I turned my chair 90 degrees before a Zoom call, but I’m not that much of an idiot.
• This article was amended on 18 January 2024. The original stated that it contained nine ways to arrange your bookshelves. This has been changed.
