The rise of private libraries

Shhh! Private libraries are making a quiet comeback... As public libraries suffer from budget cuts, more people are turning to fee-paying alternatives.
More at the FT
(pictured above, Leeds Library) 

The British Library installation

The British Library is a site-specific installation with a digital platform for visitors to join in the discussion. Open to the public for free as part of Tate Modern’s collection displays.
By Yinka Shonibare
Tate and The British Library Installation

Shared Lady Beetle: A Micro Movable Library for Kids

"The interior spaces for displaying items are flexibly partitioned into several smaller storage areas by plates which can be freely adjusted according to users' needs. Besides, all the partitions can also be removed, through which a complete big space will be formed. The installation can be customized based on different needs, making it versatile and "universal"... The Shared Lady Beetle, is like a "beneficial insect" walking on the "urban leaf ", which can be used as a mobile library , a stall, or a maker classroom for kids, etc."
LUO studio

Modular bookcase

Victor Martiniuc

Little Free Libraries & Tiny Sheds

If you like sheds and you like books, then you will certainly enjoy Little Free Libraries & Tiny Sheds: 12 Miniature Structures You Can Build. Written by Philip Schmidt and Little Free Library and published by Cool Springs Press (£16.99/$24.99 - part of the Quarto stable who also published my Book Towns book last year), the Little Free Library movement (motto:‘Take a book, return a book’)is probably the most successful library project of the 21st century – there are now more than 80,000 in 91 countries around the world.

These handmade tiny libraries, often built to look rather like oversized bird boxes, are placed at strategic locations in neighbourhoods such as front gardens, yards and parks, but also in coffee shops and near restaurants. Anybody can remove a volume and deposit another for others to share. 

The book features full instructions detailing how to build a dozen designs ranging in size from the popular small box model to a full shed structure. Among them is the blueprint for the first Little Free Library, built by Todd Bol in 2009, who wrote the forward but sadly died shortly before this book was published. As well as information on installation and maintenance, there are also sections on how to publicise your little free library, what to stock, how to encourage community involvment, and a lovely collection of some of the most interesting around the world. It's really nicely put together, genuinely useful, and supports a great cause.

Writing gloves

Bookshelf was offered these rather attractive writing gloves by Literary Book Gifts to give them a test run (note: these are not my hands). They're made of cashmere knit so are extremely soft and comfortable and come in 13 colours. Obviously we can't testify to their durability as we've only had them a couple of days but apparently "cotton, polyester, and microfiber are blended in for durability" and we've no reason to disbelieve that. All in all, if you need to type and would like something to keep your hands warm that doesn't get in the way of your fingers, these could be the ideal solution. Available from Literary Book Gifts which is based in the USA but ships anywhere in the world. They also sell t-shirts (for women and men) and tote bags.

Literary Places

If you enjoyed Book Towns, then I think you'll like Literary Places by Sarah Baxter (published by White Lion which is part of the same publishing stable). It's a collection of locations around the planet associated with famous writers which would make ideal holiday spots for keen readers - such as Dublin, Soweto, and Kerala - each associated with a famous work. So for example you can read about the Mississippi River (Huckleberry Finn) or try out Cartagena (Love in the Time of Cholera).

Sarah is a very experienced travel writer and you'll have read her pieces in all the quality national dailies as well as her work in multiple Lonely Planet guides (and perhaps also in the first of this series called Inspired Traveller's Guide: Spiritual Places). It's nicely done, not too long but with plenty of food for thought and ideas for your next trip, well written, and will also encourage you to have a go at some classics you've been planning to attempt. It's also the kind of book you could take with you on holiday and read happily pool-side or in a nice little café.

Literary Places is beautifully illustrated throughout with full page colour images by the artist Amy Grimes. I particularly liked her illustrations of Spain for the Don Quixote and Ernest Hemingway chapters focusing on La Mancha and the Sierra de Guadarrama. It would be unfair to call this a coffee table book because that's often used a bit dismissively, but Amy's illustrations do really add another dimension which is often lacking in travel books.

Airbook frame

There are so many wonderful memories in books, like some serious notes or interesting graphic. These memories are worth to come back to review and watch constantly after we grow up. Therefore, we focused on how to preserve the memories, thinking out how the eliminated textbooks can be combined with life. Save memories, simultaneously, giving them new functionality. "You can hate exams, but do not hate reading." We hope that with our design, an adult can still learn to keep reading habits. Use the natural shapes to brainstorming and thinking ideas, produce cornerstone which can extend to all directions and combination. The core, we call “Emerald” has 8 hole around a circle can provide consumers freedom to build up many different kinds of bookcase.
Hsiang Yu Lien

Tiny bookshelves

View this post on Instagram

I finished work on the tiny bookshelves for a #newcommission. #workinprogress #sublackwellstudio #miniature

A post shared by Su Blackwell (@sublackwellstudio) on Feb 27, 2019 at 10:29am PST

Librero Entropía

Bookcase manufactured in white Oak, concrete and powder coated metal. A reflection on stability and safety following the Mexico earthquake of 2017.

225cm x 28cm x 160cm (h)

Comité de Proyectos

Fiction 9

Eight Colour Pigment Based Archival Print on Hahnemuhle Paper
117 x 51cms edition of 45
Phil Shaw

Bookshelf

Bookshelf is a piece of furniture created by Slovak designer Lenka Czereova. This original bookshelf interprets the moment when a tree is cut down and falls to the ground. In this way, its creator transforms a structure that seems firm and stable into a completely different one whose main characteristics are flexibility and mobility. This bookshelf creates that sense of movement by being made of four pieces that can be connected to each other or used individually. Made in plywood beech, the originality of this bookshelf lies in its innovative structure capable of giving a different touch to any room.
Lenka Kozic

Incompleto bookcase

Incompleto is a furniture element which inspired by the artistic idea of ​​"unfinished", a concept then translated at a graphical level. Moreover, the bookcase is characterised by the presence of an intruder element which, however, fits very well into the scene, becoming also the third carrier.
Juanny Barcelò Borges

Haynes Shed Manual

My latest book is all done and dusted and at the printers now. Here's what the cover for our Haynes Shed Manual will look like and I'll be posting some sample spreads nearer the date. Publication day is April 13.

The Book Collector

Su Blackwell

The Writers Game: War of Words

Here's a short piece I've written for the Laurence King website about the making of my The Writers Game trumps.

I’ve always loved card games, especially those involving trumps – as a child I spent hours with friends pitting racing cars’ engine capacities and windjammers’ displacements, and for my 30^th birthday the invitations to my party were in the style of the original Dubreq Top Trumps cards featuring categories such as ‘Turning circle’ (which I humbly decided was ‘on a sixpence’). So I was delighted when Laurence King felt a similar urge to produce a literary trumps card game, but played with writers rather than military tanks or dragster bikes.

You can read the rest of it here.

Marie Kondo can’t have my bookshelves

"The backlash to Marie Kondo’s suggestion that we chuck out books that don’t “bring joy” shows how attached we are to physical books, even in a digital age. I think Kondo is very impressive. I like how she advises us to fold a shirt with love in our hands. Why not? All the same, I’m not going to give it a go because I believed Virginia Woolf when she advised female writers to kill the angel in the house."
The Guardian

Gothic book coffer

A rare 15th century French Gothic coffer, believed to have been used for housing and transporting religious texts, has been acquired by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. Thousands of manuscripts and printed books survive from medieval Europe but just over 100 book coffers are known to be in existence. This book-box forms the centrepiece of a new display at the Bodleian's Weston Library, titled Thinking Inside the Box, which opened on 19 January and continues until 17 February 2019.

Twisted Dancer bookcase

A funny and creative variation of the standard type bookshelf. Quirky and whimsical, this dancer shows a distinctive character which gives it an illusion of being alive and a whole new outstanding identity. Made from first class FSC birch plywood and finished with durable water based paints.
Josip Gotler

The Writers Game: Classic Authors

My latest literary trumps card game is out today. The Writers Game: Classic Authors also has lovely illustrations by Lesley Buckingham. More details at Laurence King who are producing it.

Little disciplinary shuffle on the top trumps theme amongst my pressies: the ‘modern writers game’...@LyndseyStonebri @gwendabird @sarahchurchwell #numbers #whoseyourtoptrump pic.twitter.com/2Nw0id1bLP

— JenniBarclay (@VolcanoJenni) December 27, 2018

Thinking inside the box

Thinking inside the box
A display of boxes, bags, and satchels used for carrying books at different times and places – inspired by the Bodleian Libraries' recent acquisition of a book-coffer from 15th-century medieval Paris.
19 January - 17 February Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, Oxford
Bodleian Libraries

Tardis Little Library

Located at the corner of 94th Street and Columbus Ave. South in Bloomington, MN near the Mall Of America.

Maurice Baring's travel library

A fascinating travelling library once owned by Maurice Baring, an Old Etonian who was a leading man of letters in the first half of the 20th century...

In early January 2019, Bonhams Knightsbridge will host a special public exhibition: Voyages: a journey in Books from Eton College Library. The loan exhibition, which is supported by Martin Randall Travel, leading experts in cultural tours, runs from Monday 7 – Friday 18 January, Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm; Sunday 13th, 11am to 3pm. Bonhams, Montpelier Street, London SW7 1HH. FREE ENTRY.

Bonhams via  Fine Books Magazine

Ex Novo bookcase

The EX-NOVO project was developed in collaboration with Akrat Recycling, a social cooperative whose primary task is to create a working reality linked to re-use. The Novo bookcase, made up of trapezoidal modules, which work on the single inclination of one side, is an answer to the reason why most of the furniture is thrown away, the lack of adaptability and flexibility with respect to the spaces. Each module has different sizes, but the same proportions and the same inclination of the longer side. This derives from the use of furniture surfaces of different sizes and materials from which more or less modules can be made, creating a sort of patchwork of different woods and colors, an aesthetic trait that makes this object always unique, which changes according to of the different combinations.
Jacopo Coen

Book Boards

Groups of vertically stored cutting or serving boards crafted from reclaimed woods. The board’s proportions are informed by the many standard book and paper formats giving them an archetypal and satisfying weight and feel. A small group forms an interesting and useful feature in the kitchen, individuals comfortably add to your collection of other boards or they can even join your cook books on their shelf.
Sebastian Bergne

The Real McCoy

Today is almost the halfway point of Claire Cock-Starkey's blog tour for her latest book, the excellent The Real McCoy which will certainly appeal to readers of Bookshelf - it's 150 of the most interesting eponyms in English (those words named after individuals). As Claire says: "The Real McCoy is the perfect addition to any wordsmith’s bookshelf." You can read more about Claire and her books (the others are also all well worth a read) at www.nonfictioness.com and on the Twitter where she is @nonfictioness.

Urban bookshelf

Iliada Ndoci

Pumpkin library bookshelves

The pumpkin, carved by local children and decorated by library staff, features several Lego people sitting in the comfort of their own mini-library under a tangled string of lights. For Halloween, the Lego people will even be adorned in costumes.
Boston Globe and Truro Library

The Writers Game

I've been working on this concept on and off for the last three years (readers with good memories will remember that I tried to crowdfund it with Unbound) and now The Writers Game is 'published' today by Laurence King. It's essentially literary top trumps, good wholesome fun for all the family in a rather snazzy box. Here's what LK say about it:

Who had the most commercial success in their lifetime, Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie? Whose work has the most adaptations, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Franz Kafka? Who courted the most scandal, Colette or James Joyce? Pit 32 of the world’s greatest modern writers against each other with these beautifully illustrated cards. An ideal gift for the book lover in your life.

Oyster bookcase

Aylin Özdemir

Shelf Life

As some of you know, away from the world of bookshelves, I also write books (frequently on bookish subjects). The latest is out today, Shelf Life, published by The British Library. Here is some bumph about it:

Books; reading, collecting and the physical housing of them has brought the book-lover joy – and stress – for centuries. Fascinated writers have tried to capture the particular relationships we form with our library, and the desperate troubles we will undergo to preserve it. With Alex Johnson as your guide, immerse yourself in this eclectic anthology and hear from an iconic Prime Minister musing over the best way to store your books and an illustrious US President explaining the best works to read outdoors. Enjoy serious speculations on the psychological implications of reading from a 19th century philosopher, and less serious ones concerning the predicament of dispensing with unwanted volumes or the danger of letting children (the ‘enemies of books’) near your collection

Available from all good bookshops (please buy local if at all possible) as well as the usual suspects online.

Books on Prescription for World Mental Health Day

Books on Prescription helps you to understand and manage your health and wellbeing using self-help reading. The books are chosen by health experts and people living with the conditions covered. People can be recommended a title by a health professional, or they can visit their local library and take a book out for free. The scheme is available in 98% of English library authorities.
More at Reading Well here and here

ASCIUTTO bookcase

Wooden bookcase
Silvia Fabris

Sedbergh Book Shelter

Bibliophiles in the community, which claims to have the most books for sale per head of population anywhere in England, have created what is believed to be Cumbria’s first ‘Book Shelter’. The ‘novel’ facility makes use of a redundant bus shelter in the town’s Main Street where locals and visitors have access to four shelves of books. The Book Shelter can be used as a mini library where books can be borrowed and returned or as a book exchange.
The Westmoreland Gazette

 Incidentally, I shall be doing a book signing at the Sedbergh Book Festival this weekend.