Today's Tom Gauld Cultural Cartoon:

on rearranging your bookshelves in lockdown.

So like one.

(Okay, I am not, so far, actually doing Zoom meetings, but I must say, if I were, I might just possibly be tempted into doing a setup with My Own Brag Shelves in the revolving bookcase where I could sit with my laptop carefully angled...)

And on reading, a ( Read more... )

Okay, I am staying out of the Marie Kondo vs books debate because, on the one hand, you will pry the habit of having many, many books from my cold dead hands, and on the other, I am entirely aware that I have too menny and only the fact that they are not in free-standing bookcases prevents there being a nasty Leonard-Bast-in-Howards-End type ( Read more... )

Yet another paean to the 'return' of the physical book and the allure of the bookshelves: My bookshelf says who I am - and a Kindle cannot do that.
Well, that depends whether your bookshelves do say who you are - mine, I depose, say 'I am large, I contain multitudes' - and whether you want this revealed to any casual observer - though I daresay ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished All Systems Red: would pick up further diaries of the Murderbot.
Sharon Lee and Steven Miller, The Gathering Edge (2017) - possibly not the place to start (Liaden vol 20), especially as it also brings in crossover with an earlier duology. But readable.
Then embarked on another Golden Age mystery which I had been sent as a ( Read more... )

A fairly interesting article on the revival of the Book of the Month Club - not quoting the massively naff headline - but there was one passage when I was going END TIEMZ B HEER!!!: [T]he Club is fueled partly by an active presence on social media. Members regularly post photographs of themselves - or their pets - with their purchases. Also popular ( Read more... )

The annoyingness of interior designers who want to Do Things With Books, things that are not read them, consult them, or have them in some arrangement so that you can find the one you're looking for:
8 Tips for Artfully Displaying Your Books: Your book collection is about to get way more beautiful.
Bookshelf trinkets! (WHUT)
Organising books for ( Read more... )

I have seen a trendy interior design book-related thing -
And it is AWESOME:
The bookcase staircase. (Though I'm not entirely sure about those 'stair treads full of books'.) (Or shelving books flat rather than upright, but these are details.)
Some of those other amazing ideas are more WTF? than awesome as such.
And, paging The Pursuit of Love, why ( Read more... )

I think we can tell from the title that this is not aimed at the serious reader with a serious book habit:
Ten spectacular and easy ways to arrange your books.

I think this is predicated on not really having a lot of books, no? If they are envisaged as design features rather than a storage and shelving problem:
Chances are, you haven't touched a ( Read more... )

My dearios know that a rise can reliably got out of yr hedjog by a number of things, among them, poncey designer wayz with bookz which take them as objects for aesthetic display rather than, you know, reading, and lists of books that everyone should have read/ought to read in the interests of having proper Kulchrle Kred.

Therefore, dear readers, I ( Read more... )

( Read more... )