apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Books by color???

but how do you find one to... you know... read?

I like the mismatched look of regular, colored books better :)

Ashley
rainycitystyle.blogspot.com

Nooooo, stop promoting books by color. Seriously, stop.

Ditto everyone. This drives me crazy.

Just the picture is annoying: a book about Frank Lloyd Wright next to a book about Roman Emperors next to a cookbook. Arghhh!

lame.

(LilyC walks away from the keyboard to keep from being snarky)

Add me to this list of driven-up-the-wall victims. If people like grouping their books by color so much, why don't they just make their own book jackets for them and keep them in logical order?

This idea has been around for a long long long time it was merely a way that stores or for mock ups were merchandized or accessorized . To do this with your own books is silly.

OK I just tried this today, by trying however to keep the books relatively close according to their subject.
It does look nice for the moment but I feel I'm going to get tired with it fast, since I'm not used to keeping books in proper order anyhow. Kept me busy an hour though :-D

Dumb.

tsk tsk. segregating books by colour.. book racism..
*shakes head*

I do this with my DVDs, sort of. I feel like I really don't have enough to warrant alphabetizing them so I organize them by spine color. How I hate that lone hot pink or yellow spine amid all the blacks, blues, red, and whites. It's a good way to exorcise any bits of OCD you may have.

This is about as ridiculous as styled rooms featuring books shelved with the spines facing inward.

Librarians (and people living in the real world) everywhere mock you.

yea I'm with the anti-books-by-color crowd.

If books are nothing more than decorative for you, fill your book cases up with book shaped blocks of wood like I've seen them do at some furniture stores. (this is a joke by the way)

o.k. I love this have done this generally with the books in my study. Not with the larger bookcases in other parts of the house. I find that alphabetical doesn't always work for me. And in an area that is often fraught with a busy buzz buzz fell, it's nice to have the books I'm using currently to be shelved for aesthetics. It works bc it's not most of my books just the those in 4 small cases.

How many times does this idea have to get posted for AT to understand that the readers think it's dumb? Please, retire this.

It's not practical, it's not all that decorative, and it's not original. If this is the only post Bethz can come up with, maybe she needs to rethink the whole thing.

No more paper books for me. I'm getting the Kindle 2!

Did this person buy books about fishing just because they were white?

I think it looks kind of weird. Even if they genuinely like fishing enough to keep several books on the topic, it's like they didn't choose any that weren't white. I thought we were all taught as children not to. You know.

I'm a veracious reader (and former aspiring librarian), but also a lazy one. I don't like bothering with alphabetizing (I tried for a long time); coloring is easier and prettier. I have a lot of books, but not so many that I can't find what I need in a couple of minutes. Besides, I have an innate ability to remember things by color anyhow.

This must be from stuffwhitepeoplelike. LOL

Maybe impractical, but it does look nice.

Not all the readers think it's dumb, quite obviously. There are several people who peruse this site that do not comment often and aren't as exposed to the repitition of design that many here rant about on a daily basis. (The "Keep Calm" stuff, the antler stuff, the shabby chic stuff.)

I have some books organized by color on the window sill of my bed nook and all the books are some of my favorite reads. No one that comes into my place is as decor obnoxious as half the people posting here.

OK, I know we've discussed "books by colour" before. I dont' think I'm being "decor-obnoxious" (as the previous poster said) by asking... if you actually *read* your books regularly, how do you find anything?? I'm not being deliberately -- I'm really asking. For real! The only two answers I can think of are: a) I have a photographic memory, so remember that my copy of "Midnight's Children" has an orange spine, while my copy of "The Satanic Verses" is white; or, b) I don't actually read my books -- they're just decorative accesories -- so I never need to find them on a whim, so it doesn't really matter where they're shelved. So long as they look good."
Yes, I still find colour-coded books weird. If you're a reader, you'll never be able to find anything when you spontaneously needed. If you're not a reader... why have books at all, if not just for pretentious, wanker-ish show?

Oy. Bad writing. Hypocrisy central. Thanks, booze! Please substitute:
"I'm not being deliberately *SNOBBISH*"; and
"... you'll never be able to find anything when you spontaneously NEED IT".

My gut reaction is to dislike this too. But having said that, and looking at the chaos of my own bookshelves, I guess I'm not sure what the problem is. My books are loosely arranged by category—gardening books, fiction, travel, old books—but it's not like it's that easy to find anything in a hurry. Truth be told, though, I am seldom looking for a book in a hurry!

So I am going to give this idea a pass...but that doesn't mean I will suddenly start to defend Keep Calm or antlers.

I have one bookshelf where I have books arranged by color and it works out just fine. The books are mostly decorative anyway--fashion, home decor and sewing. I have a few novels that have colorful covers in there too. But I have a fairly edited collection of books that I refer to and read often, so I know what I have. Things like cookbooks don't belong there. They are in the kitchen, where they belong, on a far less organized bookcase. And really unattractive books, like computer manuals are someplace else. And if I don't use it, it goes to the resale shop.

They can't all be together in some color-coded-mishmash-holds-everything bookshelf. That would drive me crazy too!

are we back to that again? sigh.

I like the way it looks to have books arranged by color, but I could never, ever do it in my own home. I have the arranged by subject and then alphabetized by author's last name (in the case of fiction), arranged by time period for history, or grouped by narrow subject matter in the case of our science, psychology, parenting books, etc.

Wow, people sure get cranky about books. Let me just defend my bookcases for a moment. These are in my very small guest room, they aren't read often, and I wanted to keep the room restful and calm.

My husband and I have a lot of books-two lifetimes worth, and he refuses to get rid of any books, ever. So I did the best I could, with what I had to work with. These have been in here for quite awhile, and I do remember what is where when I want to read one of them, it's not that hard. There are other places in the house where cookbooks (minus the seldom used white one) are all together, craft books are all together, and various fiction and non-fiction books are all together.

No books were harmed in the arrangement of this bookshelf, and no books were specifically purchased to decorate my home. Please, don't call the authorities, keep calm and carry on.

My fiction books are alpha by author, but all of my art books are arranged, more or less, by color and size in my office. I'm an art historian by training, a curator by trade, and therefore I am extremely, very, way visual. I remember what a book looks like before I remember who wrote it. I have about 40 linear feet of bookshelves in my office, filled with art books, and as soon as I arranged them by color, looking for books became SO MUCH EASIER. These books function as my professional reference library, and this would never work at a real library, but it works for ME, because of my particular learning style, and my particular book needs, and because I find visual orderliness in my office calming.

I think it's ridiculous and kind of crazy to purchase books for decor purposes, though I'm not sure anyone is advocating that.

All that said, I think it's high time to retire this as an AT topic; it has been done to death and I think we're now all aware that it's an option.

Ahhh... a little Chopin in the back-ground, a nice glass of wine, and my favorite easy chair. Now, what do I feel like reading tonight - Cobalt blue? No - tonight feels more like a Pthalo green night.

Seriously guys - this makes about as much sense as alphabetizing your clothes. Different organization systems work for different objects. Clothes by color? Yes. Books by alphabetization/subject/author? Yes.

thanks for chiming in with further info, heylucy. :)
i'm in the group that dislikes color-coded books, BUT i can definitely see your point with these two wee guest bedroom bookcases and keeping things on the tranquil side.

bothers me that the bookcases are just a few inches apart......

Sigh... All these posts about arranging books for a pretty effect? Drives me crazy.

I like the bookshelves. Where did you get them?
and suddenly I want to alphabetize my clothes..

I recently re-sorted my books by color. It looks nice. Why be rigid about grouping them by some strict code if color grouping pleases the eye?

A side benefit is that returning a book to its spot on the shelf is no longer such a precise thing as alphabetizing or by subject. Hey, I'm done with that bio of Frederick Law Olmsted -- poof, there it goes, in with the green bindings.

yeah! i saw this post and thought "i guess i'm the only one who hates color coded books," but i clicked over anyway to see what people had to say. come to find out, i'm not alone!

oh good lord. if i walked into someone's home and saw this, it would instantly lower them significantly in my esteem. you know what would lower them even more significantly? hearing them suggest such a thing to others. this is practically an affront to literacy.

p.s. to the former aspiring librarian: VORacious, not VERacious. the "vor" stem is for hunger/eating; "ver" has to do with truth.

p.p.s. i'm not really a curmudgeon--i just play one in this comment.

p.p.p.s. the lack of color in those bookshelves looks awful anyway!

Oh good lord people, the snark! Didn't your parents teach you that if you don't have something nice to say, say nothing at all?

Despite the fact that I have a - gasp! - master's in library science, I think the all-white looks great against the wood of the bookshelves. And since I'm confessing things that run counter to my graduate training, I might as well say it: I don't sort my books alphabetically.

I'm not a "by color" type (or an alphabetical type). My technicolor books are organized by genre and the larger political philosophy and history collections are organized chronologically by country/major event.

Any snark I would have offered about this strangely monochromatic bookshelf went out the door when I noticed the copy of "Constitutional and Legal History of England" on one shelf. Good read.

French and Chinese paperbacks often have white covers and they do look extra- good en masse. The plastic covers on the Pleiade editions are especially nice, because they really act to protect the book when you take it to read on the subway. (The ribbon bookmarks are even nicer!).

I think one should arrange books in the usual way, by alphabet, genre, or chronology, and size. But I don't object at all to the idea of nice home-made or custom made book covers, color coordinated or not. In fact I wish it were easier to do this. Maybe the custom sicker people could branch out into this.

No books were harmed in the arrangement of this bookshelf, and no books were specifically purchased to decorate my home. Please, don't call the authorities, keep calm and carry on.

Oh, snap!

Like Stephen Colbert, I don't see color... but people tell me the books in the photo are white. I'll take their word for it.

Custom sticker -- not sicker.

Sometimes I wonder if I read AT just for the book posts.
I hate the look of books by color, but think it could be helpful when looking for things. I often remember the shape and color of a book better than the author.

"This makes about as much sense as alphabetizing your clothes."
This sums this whole thing up perfectly for me, just perfectly.

I hereby vote for at least one book-by-color article per trimester. Gets more people posting. Lets some people feel superior to others about the rightness of their opinions. Doesn't frighten the horses.