THE ART OF THE BOOKSHELF

How do you stack your bookshelves? Do you organise by theme, colour, size, chronology? We explore what the art of the shelf says about the reader

- Lottie Fyfe

Whenever I am invited to somebody’s house for the first time, I am compelled by some strange and undeniable magnetism to inspect their bookshelves. Part of the draw might be that what we keep on our shelves is to some extent a reflection of who we are, our personal tastes and preferences— the contents of a bookshelf tell the story of a life. And we certainly get attached to our books in a way we don’t with any other type of possession: Marie Kondo sparked an online furore after it was reported that she suggested clients should pare down their book collections (a claim that was later revealed to be untrue). Patty Morrissey, a certified KonMari decluttering consultant, is keen to stress that the ethos behind the method is not minimalism, but a conscious decision about how you relate to your possessions: The things that you're surrounding yourself with, and it's definitely true for books, should reflect the person you’re becoming. Everything reflects an intention that you have. And these intentions are often reflected on our bookshelves in the form of the to be read pile.

Tom Cox, author of ten books (most recently Help the Witch, a collection of stories about folklore and landscape), says that his own extensive collection is partly a reflection of his ambitions. I very carefully curate what I want to read, because I’m thinking about what’s going to expand my horizons as a writer. So there’s no denying that what we choose to display to the world in the form of our reading material says something about us. But is there also something about the way we stack our shelves that is just as important?