Product Description

This is an inspirational book that explores over 150 ways in which books can not only be stored, but made to play a full part in the character of a home, be it large or small, minimalist or full of cluttered charm. Books are among the commonest but most treasured possessions in a home, yet their storage and display is often neglected and not given serious consideration as part of the interior design - something all the more necessary as the functions of home and workplace now often merge. Chapters are devoted to separate rooms, looking in turn at reception rooms, home offices, and libraries, as well as kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms, with over 180 colour photographs from around the world providing a wealth of inspiration. Ingenious space-saving devices are illustrated for storing books in odd spaces within the home - for example in staircases, corridors, and hallways. There is a chapter on caring for books, plus practical pages providing useful technical hints for planning and building bookshelves (scale, proportion, materials, fittings, etc), complete with illustrated step-by-step instructions showing how to carry out your own imaginative book-storage projects. Special double-page features appear in each chapter on topics such as ingenious designer solutions, book plates, and creating furniture out of books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1196262 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From Library Journal
Powers, librarian of the Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture, has collected a wealth of photographs depicting myriad ways to store books. He shows them in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and home office; in hallways and stairs; and, of course, in the library. He provides some information on the care of books, but professional and student designers will find this book especially helpful for showing how other designers have approached the design of shelving and storage of books.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 4, 1999
Book-lovers especially will delight in Alan Powers' "Living with Books" for the many novel ways it suggests for giving books the storage space they need and deserve. This is no simple issue: Internet users can talk as much as they like about the appeal of electronic books, but bibliophiles can't be dismissed as Luddites simply because they value the real thing. And the real thing needs a place of its own. "Living with Books" is something of a wish-book, suggesting countless ways to use shelves in attractive and practial ways...

Good Housekeeping, September 1999
Attention bookworms! Put down that novel, and check out "Living with Books" by Alan Powers; it's full of wonderful examples of how to display your Prousts and paperbacks. A chapter called "Practicalities" outlines the basics of building do-it-yourself bookcases, from wood to metal racks.

Customer Reviews

disappointing
I had high hopes because I love reading about books, but this one was disappointing. I originally gave it three stars for the photos, which are worth looking at, but the text it pretty awful -- a serious drawback in a book aimed at compulsive book collectors. I took off one whole star specifically for a line that says something like, "It doesn't matter if books access is difficult, as long as it isn't completely impossible." Doesn't matter to whom? It does to this reader. I reread. I browse nostalgic favorites. I like to handle my books, and I need to be able to get to them. Also, a substantial number of the storage systems shown appear to be concerned more sith style thyan with storage -- I didn't mind the coffee table constructed of books layered with glass, as those were old design catalogs and the whole was sort of a pun, but the grid system and a few other types of shelves that only contained a book or two here and there as placed by a decorator is really not my idea of living with books. Get this if you want pretty pictures. If you're really interested in books themselves and how they are stored, try Henry Petroski's The Book and the Bookshelf instead.

pretty interesting
This is more of a coffe table book. It's full of interesting photographs of, what else, books. The pictures show books incorporated into interesting architecture, unique shelving and storage for books, home libraries and offices, etc. The text offers advice and commentary on displaying and storing books in practical, unique, and interesting ways. If you're a bookworm and/or collect lots of books, you would enjoy paging through Living With Books.

Books in their natural habitats . . .
I have a feeling the previous reviewers were expecting a how-to book of home construction projects. Actually this is more of a tour guide. It's fascinating to discover the many creative, ingenious, and very original ways architects and ordinary booklovers have found to store books, display them, and enjoy being in their presence. Face it -- one never has enough bookshelves. And some of these homes are definitely masquerading as libraries! Here are bookshelves up under the eaves of an older house, or installed over the doorways in the hall, or built into closets and cupboards and under kitchen counters. Others are freestanding on metal shelves and poles and rigged like a ship's masts. There are small libraries built into the landings of staircases and others that cover entire walls of bedrooms. Some are two tiers deep, with the front one moving sideways on rollers. Others share space with lamps, TV sets, telephones, clocks, computers, ancient artifacts, photographs, and knick-knacks. And the one thing all the arrangements depicted in this book have in common is, none of them -- even the most attractively arranged -- are just for show. One look at the worn covers and frayed jackets tells you these books are the constant companions of their owners.