Book sales are rising but that’s only half the story
THOSE who assumed the writing was on the wall for books have had to think again. Sales are up 5 per cent, according to annual figures from the Publishers Association.
What’s not so clear is where we stand on bookshelves.
My entirely non- scientific assessment — based on anecdotal evidence during conversations with a cluster of millennials — is that books, once bought and read, are more likely to end up in a charity shop than on a chunky shelf.
‘Shelf space is tight and it’s too much of a luxury to give it up for the sake of books,’ one newly married 28-year-old told me. Her solicitor husband added: ‘ Books just sit and collect dust and add to the clutter, but perhaps it’s a generational thing.’
Maybe he’s right. It doesn’t seem to be a literary thing because both these young people are voracious readers, albeit mainly on their Kindles.
It might be a case of modern aesthetics. Books are seen as cumbersome, old- fashioned, bulky, even a touch dull and, ultimately, smelly.
But that argument doesn’t seem water-tight either.
Just look at the reaction when the explorer Ben Fogle posted an Instagram photo of himself and his young son decorating their Christmas tree.
‘ I’m more interested in the colour co-ordinated books behind you,’ said one of his followers.
Obligingly, Fogle then posted a picture of his huge bookshelf displayed according to the colours of the spines. All the whites were on one of the top shelves, reds and blacks occupying two of the lower shelves, greens in the middle and so on.
Apparently it took Fogle two hours to colour- co- ordinate his shelves — two wasted hours in some people’s eyes, amid accusations that to treat books like ornaments is to commit a decorative faux pas.
One tweet went overboard saying: ‘ Treating books like ornaments; thinking the colour is the t most important thing. He’s a barbarian!’ b
Philip Blackwell, who runs the Ultimate Library which supplies collections of books to hotels and individuals looking for a job lot, says s that ‘ in an aesthetic world your y shelves should look good bu but the actual content should make you look good’.
Which is why he believes the ‘trashy novel has little aesthetic value’ and should, therefore, be binned whereas the ‘ intelligent hardback that holds a memory should be allowed to linger’.
What’s fashionable are bookshelves that include space for other objects such as picture frames, silver, antique glass and decanters rather than cramming the shelves just with books.
BOOKSdoubling as art is one of the specialities of Maison Assouline, the publishing company that has a store on London’s Piccadilly. Walk into this gorgeous space and you’ll be sold on developing a library however humble. Mind you, it helps that Maison Assouline occupies a Lutens-designed former bank with a mezzanine, high ceilings and wooden ladders to retrieve out of reach tomes.
Most people live more cheek by
jowel and don’t have acres of builtin shelf space. That must be why one of Ikea’s best sellers is the Billy bookcase which has a neutral aesthetic about it — neither pretty nor ugly but purely functional.
In the Fifties and Sixties, it was popular to display the complete works of one author or the full set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Today, such a display might be regarded as nerdish or suburban.
Shelves are highly personal, revealing a great deal about who you are or who you would like people to think you are. Various esoteric books might well make an impression on visitors, whether or not you have read them. The Japanese have a word for this — tsundoku. It translates as acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up unread. The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) so there’s nothing new about inflating one’s perceived intelligence
The book collector, Edward Newton, who died in 1940, had no doubts about the merits of having books. ‘ Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy . . . and is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity. We cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort.’
Millennials might want to take note.