People have always used books to assert their sophistication and affluence. You need only visit the library of a National Trust property to see that. The novelist F Scott Fitzgerald famously critiqued the shallowness of the super-rich via his character, Jay Gatsby, who lined his shelves with books in order to project a cultured image of himself \u2013 yet they were \u201cuncut\u201d and had never been read.<\/p>\n
To one guest at Gatsby\u2019s party, that doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 he describes the shelves (that he had at first assumed to be cardboard facades of books) as \u201ca triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too \u2013 didn\u2019t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?\u201d<\/p>\n
A century on from The Great Gatsby\u2019s publication, it is once again fashionable to decorate using books \u2013 and to question the motives of those who do so. In Vincenzo Latronico<\/a>\u2019s International Booker-shortlisted Perfection<\/a>, a novel that highlights the hollowness of chasing a \u201ccool\u201d, \u201ccurated\u201d life, Anna and Tom\u2019s self-consciously chic flat features \u201cfloor-to-ceiling shelves lined with paperbacks and graphic novels \u2026 interspersed with illustrated coffee-table books \u2013 monographs on Noorda and Warhol, Tufte\u2019s series on infographics, the Taschen history of typefaces, and another Taschen on the entryways of Milan,\u201d carefully arranged with \u201csucculents in cement plant pots,\u201d and \u201ca waist-level camera\u201d in the place of bookends.<\/p>\n Through their home, Latronico writes, the couple has created a picture of a life that is \u201cclear and purposeful\u201d \u2013 whether or not that is actually the case.<\/p>\n In an age of constant scrolling, there is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of books. And creating an aesthetically pleasing bookshelf is now easier than ever, thanks to an increase in booksellers who trade in \u201cbooks by the metre\u201d.<\/p>\n Vintage volumes are particularly popular, as they offer an instant way to create the effect of a long-established library made up of books collected over many years. \u201cMy bookshelf is now complete,\u201d reads one customer review on an eBay listing<\/a> for a metre\u2019s worth of \u201crandomly selected\u201d antique titles, available for \u00a350.<\/p>\n Etsy has seen a 19,616% increase in searches for book-lover decor. Photograph: Aire Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Dayna Isom Johnson, a trend expert at Etsy, another website where some sellers offer books by the metre<\/a>, says the company has \u201cseen a 19,616% increase in searches for book-lover decor\u201d over the past three months, compared with the same time last year.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re willing to pay a bit more, sellers will offer a more bespoke service: for example, for \u00a398, the online shop Country House Library<\/a> will sell you a metre of assorted vintage books that all have orange covers.<\/p>\n Madeleine Ovenden is head of non-traditional sales at the publisher Thames & Hudson, which specialises in what might be referred to as \u201ccoffee-table books\u201d. She has seen an increase in interior designers wanting to bulk-buy books with spines in similar colours, \u201cto fit a room theme\u201d. The company now sells bundles of coffee-table books that all fit a certain colour or aesthetic \u2013 a stack of lemon-yellow Thames & Hudson books<\/a>, for instance, could be yours for \u00a3119.90.<\/p>\n Customers will also come to the publisher directly, Ovenden says, with \u201crequests by the metre for certain shelf sizes\u201d.<\/p>\n The rise in such requests can be attributed to the popularity of the \u201cbookshelf wealth\u201d interior design trend on TikTok<\/a> \u2013 an extension of the \u201cquiet luxury\u201d and \u201cstealth wealth\u201d aesthetic. A bookshelf that looks like an heirloom family collection, complete with art and ornaments, suggests you care about literature and art \u2013 and have time and money to spend on these things.<\/p>\n Philip Blackwell curates bookshelves for a living via his company, Ultimate Library, which is used by hotels, businesses and homeowners who want to outsource the task of filling up their bookshelves. Though he is critical of the \u201cbooks by the metre\u201d trend \u2013 Ultimate Library\u2019s selling point is that a knowledgable team will work with the client to select books they might actually read \u2013 he acknowledges that, if you\u2019re trying to build a library from scratch, you will almost inevitably have a certain amount of space to fill.<\/p>\n I\u2019m speaking to Blackwell at 40 Leadenhall, a newly developed office building in the City of London, where his company was commissioned to create a library for workers to use. \u201cThat panel there is 14 linear metres multiplied by 33.\u201d So he and his colleagues have to find 462 metres of books to fill that space, though most will be chosen for more than just their age, size or colour, and will be available to borrow. \u201cCreating a book collection, certainly for a private client, is all about having a discussion, going on a voyage to discover it, and it should be really good fun,\u201d Blackwell says. He likes to quote Cicero: \u201cA room without books is like a body without a soul.\u201d Services like his, then, manufacture that \u201csoul\u201d in places such as offices and hotels that might otherwise be pretty soulless.<\/p>\n \u2018Creating a book collection is about going on a voyage\u2019 \u2026 40 Leadenhall\u2019s library. Photograph: Will Pryce\/M&G<\/p>\n Blackwell\u2019s service might be less superficial than simply using books for wall-dressing, but its appeal is still partly down to clients liking the way that books look. Michael Wood, who works for M&G Real Estate, which owns 40 Leadenhall, says M&G approached Ultimate Library partly because \u201cwe\u2019ve got a big space in this ground floor to fill and books are a great way to do that\u201d. Aesthetically, the books make the building\u2019s lobby look less stark \u2013 and the higher shelves, which feature older books arranged by colour, are wholly ornamental.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a decorative element, books are great because they add a lot of texture,\u201d says New York-based interior designer Tommy Landen Huerter. \u201cThey add colour in places where it wouldn\u2019t be easy to otherwise integrate it. They just make a home look a lot more lived-in.\u201d<\/p>\n There have \u201cdefinitely been clients I have bought books for that will probably never be opened\u201d, who want full bookshelves \u201cjust for the aesthetic\u201d, he says. He has been asked, for example, to style books on high shelves that homeowners will \u201cnever be able to reach\u201d.<\/p>\n That is partly because books look good, but also because of their value as status symbols, Landen Huerter thinks. \u201cIt\u2019s like: \u2018Look how well-read I am because I have the time to read and I\u2019m educated enough to know these topics.\u2019\u201d The designer himself has \u201ca weird insecurity\u201d over the fact that visitors to his own home wouldn\u2019t know he reads, since he does so exclusively on an e-reader and therefore doesn\u2019t have any physical books on display. Through your home, \u201cyou want to show your interests\u201d he says \u2013 but you can also show what you would like people to think your interests are, which is the impulse behind clients asking him to buy books in bulk for ornamental purposes. \u201cI can understand why people would say: \u2018I haven\u2019t read 100 books in the last year, but I would like to have.\u2019\u201d Just as they do via social media or through clothing choices, people are often trying to present the version of themselves that they would like to be true, rather than what actually is.<\/p>\n Presenting the image of being a book lover has never been easier \u2013 part of the reason that buying books by length has become a trend is that books can be bought very cheaply, says Matt Hubbard, owner of secondhand bookshop Halcyon Books in south-east London. In the UK and the US at least (the market is slightly less populated in continental Europe), books are published in huge quantities: \u201cWe\u2019re definitely spoiled for having a hell of a lot of books around.\u201d<\/p>\n Hubbard says he could easily take on more books than he would be able to sell, and some \u201ctatty paperbacks\u201d have such a low value that they end up getting recycled. There is a \u201csort of a rag trade side of the book business\u201d, where books are bought by weight and sold on \u201cvery cheaply\u201d by retailers such as Amazon, eBay and World of Books. This has \u201chugely depressed the prices\u201d of a lot of secondhand books, he says.<\/p>\n \u2018I can understand why people would say: \u201cI haven\u2019t read 100 books in the last year, but I would like to have.\u201d\u2019 Photograph: Fotograf\u00eda de eLuVe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Selling books by the metre, then, is a savvy way for retailers to get rid of large numbers of titles that would otherwise be difficult to shift.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not without its downsides, though. \u201cIt promotes this overconsumption of things that don\u2019t really have meaning, that are just for the aesthetic,\u201d says Landen Huerter. The interior designer worries about the rise of \u201cfast-fashion trends\u201d in home decor, similar to what has happened in the clothing industry. When people start to feel they need to follow new trends and constantly change their homes, it creates \u201ca new level of waste and overconsumption\u201d, which \u201cgets away from the whole idea of having a collected and curated space of things that represent yourself, your story and your interests,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Buying books by length allows people to create a kind of \u201cknock-off\u201d version of a richly filled bookshelf put together over years of reading for people who \u201ccan\u2019t be bothered to choose the books and read them,\u201d Hubbard says \u2013 or who can\u2019t afford a service like Blackwell\u2019s, perhaps.<\/p>\n It is easy to be snobby about people who fill their bookshelves in this way \u2013 but \u201cwe\u2019ve all got lots of books on our shelves that we haven\u2019t read,\u201d Hubbard points out. In Japan, they even have a word \u2013 tsundoku \u2013 for acquiring books with the best of intentions but letting them pile up without reading them.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s obviously frustrating for true bibliophiles when someone has bought a random selection of books in bulk to decorate their home, the fact there are books in their home at all is a good thing, Blackwell thinks. Having books around means that, at the very least, the opportunity to read one is there.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my experience\u201d, he says, \u201cthere is always the right time and the right place to read a book.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People have always used books to assert their sophistication and affluence. 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