DIY or purchased book covers are a great alternative to book shame. In smaller apartments bookshelves can take-up significant wall space, so covers present an opportunity to add a cool decorating element to your home. Also, you can turn your hodgepodge into a gorgeous piece of art, like the vintage french fabric book collection shown. Book covers can be practical, if you add identification to the spines. You can even create a personalized Dewey Decimal system!
It's easy to make your own book covers, and there are several websites that have great How To Tutorials. I challenge you to think beyond paper and even traditional fabric. There are crazy and creative ways to make your covers unique. What about using faux fur? Anything can be bejeweled, anything. Also, online software, like Bookemon, allow you to upload photos to create your own book covers. Finally, you can buy fashionable designs by companies like Book City Jackets.
For More Book Cover Ideas, Check Out These Apartment Therapy Posts!
• Kraft-Covered Books
• Look: Book Covers As Bookshelf Design and Art Display
• Decorating With Books
• Back to School: Classic Paper-Covered Text Books
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I absolutely love this post. I don't have book shame but it would be fun to make my bookshelf decorative by papering and labeling my books in beautiful wrapping. More unifying too. Thanks!
I guess this might be good for people that don't actually read the books on their shelves or if you're just covering a couple of embarrassing books. The shelves where every book is covered though is ridiculous, even if it looks cute, because how would you find the book you want without taking ages?
I don't see why not have nice covers. Books were originally sold unbound so people could choose their own.
Can only assume the leadup was entirely tongue-in-cheek, being the difference between hilarity and fail. Eventually, I might put my manga on display. With series, a detail they occasionally integrate into the cover design is to have a long, continuous illustration on the spines that grows/gets revealed as more volumes are released.
i like the first slide. the rest? meh looks cheap
Not really a fan of this idea. If I saw it at someone's house I'd probably think that they don't care to read at all. Maybe for someone with only a few books it would be cute. I'm a grad student though and add to my collection at the rate of at least half a shelf per-quarter.
I arrange my books by spine color - which I'm sure I learned on AT at one point - and it seriously reduced the clutter look of my bookshelves. Since I'm very visually oriented I already looked for books based on color, so I actually find them faster now. :)
I don't know that I'd do this. It's a cute idea, to be sure, but I have a lot of hardcover books and I've always loved the look of an unjacketed hardcover, no matter the title.
Also, thanks for reminding me to donate my copy of "Twilight" this holiday season. It's just going to go unread if it stays with me.
meh, if my guests are going to judge me negatively based on what they see on a bookshelf, that's their own problem.
i like the books i own.
"Maybe I don't want to make my friends feel uncomfortable because I'm so much smarter than them and read A Brief History of Time to wind down before bed. "
Like lepidoptery, I hope this was tongue in cheek, because if a friend thought I would feel badly because he or she were smarter than I am, said person wouldn't be my friend for much longer.
Some of these are cute and others make me want to cringe. I can't imagine you actually read books if the spines don't have a title. I wouldn't mind having something turn into a design on the shelf, so long as I could actually find what I'm looking for.
I have no problem with people making their own book covers, although I prefer the jackets they come in. But I agree with others who have observed that caring about what people think of your book collection is kind of ridiculous. (Well maybe if you have a huge porn collection and prudish friends or relatives -- but that's a whole OTHER problem!) You read what you read -- shouldn't the people you allow in your home be OK with that? Shouldn't you?
We have probably about 3000 books. NO WAY I'm spending the money it would take to cover them! I shelve them by topic, but even so it sometimes takes a while to find specific ones, and disguising them for decor would be counter-productive.
ok, obviously the lead-up was tongue-in-cheek. but i'm still a little weirded out by this post. how do you find your books? what kind of awful people judge their friends based on their libraries?
@bodicegoddess
I don't suppose you live in Philly? I need a copy of Twilight so I can put the Alcibiades, Zombie Executioner, Volume III: The Delirium of Athens dustjacket on it.
... I will probably be trying to sell the Harry Potter books soon, since I have a complete set, so I can't just put it on Deathly Hallows. Twilight is of comparable heft, no?
<is the type of person who would not read twilight, but would read zombie executioner, if that tells you anything> :p