Homes & Gardens

ARRANGING BOOKS

- PHILIP BLACKWELL, founder, Ultimate Library, ultimateli­brary.co.uk.

Books can bring culture and intelligen­ce to any room; as Cicero said, ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’ Not only that, but a quick glance at both the selection of titles and the way that they are organised is often very revealing of the interests and character of the owner.

One formal way of arranging books is the classic library approach, that is by genre – fiction, non-fiction, history, art and so on. It’s probably one of the most popular ways to organise books in a domestic setting.

Those looking for a more stylised result, which will have a greater impact on the overall look and feel of the room, will arrange books in blocks of colour. Some will go for one accent – we’ve done entire walls in Penguin paperbacks, for example – others will want a kaleidosco­pe effect with different pops of colour.

Every approach will be driven by the shelf height, of course. Books are beautiful, tactile objects so where space allows, organise by height with sections of upright books broken up by groups lying down with objects mixed in.

Arranging them in chronologi­cal order – that is, the order in which you bought them rather than the date that they were written – is another great way of mapping a life in books.

For one client, we asked them to name their favourite countries and we then picked out the five best books on that country covering history, fiction, literature, culture and biography. This could be replicated at home by simply categorisi­ng titles geographic­ally.

Finally, one thoughtful way to welcome friends who are coming to stay is to select books based on their interests and arrange by their bedside. It’s a way of saying that you recognise who they are and what they like.

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