For many, this probably isn’t a huge concern. We keep all the Harry Potter books together, and the rest are nearby but aren’t allowed too close. Colour coordination doesn’t come into it.
But for some, a home library is quite the brag and a fast-growing community on Tiktok known as “BookTok” (get it? ‘Cos books and TikTok?) are sharing their favourite ways to showcase their books.
The library styles of choice range from whole rooms dedicated to housing literature to small nooks utilising spaces that may have been once occupied by something far more sinister and unbecoming. Like a television.
And then, of course, comes the ever-divisive method of display. Stacking books on a shelf can’t be straightforward, not when you’re sharing them on the internet. Indeed, some aesthetic book lovers go for making others want to burn every book in existence.
One such way is the spine facing inwards, which even I think is ridiculous. How are you meant to identify the books if you can’t read the spine? I guess you could slide it out and have a look but that seems like a lot of effort.
Then there’s the size ordering. Seems both logical and practical. Start with the biggest of the Where’s Wally books and work your way down to the Mr Men collection.
And the one that has the community up in arms: the colour-coded display. How could you? How dare you? Even if it does look really nice and it’s your home, how can you live like that? Never judge a book by its cover?
Are you grouping them together in colours and then just picking blue one day? Unacceptable.
I store all my books a little differently. I keep them all in my phone under “podcasts” because like most people, if I say to you, “I read this thing recently”, what I really mean is “I listened to this podcast the other day”.