Should Books Be Used For Decoration or Not?


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Now this is a topic which my mother and I have recently discussed a little bit due to us spending time looking at home decor ideas just for the heck of it. A lot of designers like to use books to decorate spaces and they apparently even sell books now that are blank and just used for decoration!

Now don’t get me wrong, when you have a bookshelf, the books on that bookshelf are decoration. You try and choose books with nice covers and spines usually so if they are in a prominent location, they are pleasing to the eye. Such as mine. It looks like the books on my shelf have been used and it’s colorful. They aren’t uniform or anything like that.

FullSizeRender (2)

But then you have bookshelves that are more pristine and uniformed, but the books are still being used and read. They aren’t used for decoration to just sit there and look pretty.

bookshelf

kirbymuseum.org

But then you have designer bookshelves. There is this new idea which has emerged that you don’t show your book spines so that you can find the book and see the pretty color of the book which you purchased. Oh no. You put the books in backward so you just see the pages.

backwards bookshelf

maisondecor8.blogspot.com

backwards books

apartmenttherapy.com

Sure, the bookshelves look uniform and whatever, but what is the point of this?! I completely disagree with it. I mean you can’t see what the books are at all. If you had those blank books that weren’t for reading and were just to decorate, then maybe do something like this, but why buy blank books?! Just purchase real books! I mean come on. Or if you don’t have enough books, don’t have a bookshelf and defile it like this.

Personally, and it may be seen as harsh, I see this as an extremely stupid idea. Maybe it looks all pleasing to the eye, but it is a bookshelf. Not a thing-where-you-put-out-things-with-bound-pages-but-you-don’t-know-what-it-is shelf.

I highly disagree with this but this of course is my personal opinion. People seem to be loving this now but I just hope that it is non-book lovers who do this.

All you book lovers out there, what is your opinion on this? Would you do it? Do you agree with it?

I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

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