Covet!

10 kick-ass secret passage bookshelves

Eye Candy

More of the world's 20 most beautiful bookstores can be found here.

Dude.

There's a whole tumblr of awesome bookshelves and reading rooms:   http://bookshelvesandlatefees.tumblr.com/

shelfporn for Monday morn(ing)

I love seeing photos of other people's book collections, especially authors I love.

And so, Neil Gaiman's library, courtesy of Shelfari.




It's Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Click here for book giveaway #1, and come back later this week for at least one more.

shelfporn

I love storage solutions almost as much as I love books, so when it comes to storage solutions for books? I'm so there. The bibliophile forwarded me a feed the other day with links to several really cool bookcase ideas.

Some of them looked fantastic, but seem like they might damage the books, especially paperbacks, over time:





Others were very artsy and chic, and I could almost see them in my house (even though I'm not very chic at all):


This "storyline" shelf by Frederik Roije represents the soundwave created by speaking the word "bliss." How appropriate is that?



This equation bookshelf from estudio breder would make a great gift for my sister, the math major:



Any shelves that hold books on a diagonal would drive me bonkers, I think. They kind of make me go cross-eyed, and I know my anal-retentiveness would kick in and I'd spend all my waking hours arranging and rearranging and trying to get everything to look just right:





These aren't really my style, but I think they're pretty cool:




These, I love. These I want in my house RIGHT NOW, please:







This is a wicked cool idea. Probably wouldn't work in my house, but I dig it:




As far as how to arrange books on traditional shelves, I'm glad that a lot of design sites recommend mixing traditional side-by-side arrangements with stacking books. It saves space in a big way, and also creates a little bit more visual interest:



I also love the recently popular trend of arranging books by cover color to create a rainbow effect. I don't think I'd be able to do it if it required breaking up series or sets, but I love looking at photos of other people's efforts:


There's an entire Flickr pool devoted to spectrum shelves.

Here's the original bookshelves post.

Edited to add:  one of my message board friends posted this the other day, and I cannot believe that something so awesome is in the world. Library built into a staircase: