Overdone trend. I'm a purist when it comes to design and have no problem with displaying books if you have already read them. These books can share a shelf with an artificial bonzai tree.

It kinda misses the point for me. Books are meant to be read, not to be collected for decorating purposes.

help for the unimaginative and illiterate

Great idea - for those who never read or reread their books.

All my books have a white dust cover jacket made from art pad paper. The titles are written on the spine in UV ink. I light them up with a security pen if I'm looking for a book. I don't get direct sunlight to my flat, so the white book covers keep the heavy colours of the jacket from making my home darker.

Ditto as above.

Books are for reading. :)

Why not get some colorful Art instead? Using books just for the color of the spines seems phony, heavy, not to mention a bad use of space. If you want to organize the books you own and treasure by color, great! However, strictly as a design element the decorative books leave me feeling illiterate.

I sometimes remember books by their cover, so it gers really hard to find a book if the shelves are full of purposely mis-colored books! Pride and Prejudice (the copy I have is green) is not the same color as Don Quixote (brown).

If that's what they like, who's to judge? I keep my books because I like the contents, but hiding the multiplicity of colours (or arranging so they're not distracting) is a challenge.

If someone wants to use books for props, who cares? They could read thousands of volumes electronically and no one would know.

Wow, waste shelf space on books one doesn't intend to read? No thanks!

Well, I must admit I have displayed books as decorative accents because of the color. I wouldn't buy a "set" of color coordinated books for that purpose, but I have looked for certain colors at Goodwill or other places. The Reader's Digest Condensed books have nice covers, and I can usually find those for a quarter or fifty cents at yard sales. And I do read the stories, so I'm not a complete color snob. I have orange accents in my living room, in pillows, art, etc. I have a couple of books with orange covers stacked on the end tables, and they look good. So I guess I'm a heavy, unimaginative, illiterate phony who has used space badly.

Books colour-coded or stacked have caught my eye, but always the thought afterward would be, "How impractical." I like my books to be easily accessed, you know, so they can be read=)

I find it kind of sad. To me, decorating with books only makes sense if you actually like books. I do select which books to display based on where they will be displayed (usually by topic), but I choose from among the books I already own. Of course, I barely have room for the books I read and I have a weakness for big glossy coffee table books.

f your noguchi rips on this trend quite a bunch. you no longer have to go through the painstakingly long process of buying and inheriting books to get your ROYGBIV on. just click the paypal button!

I'm not sure if I'd purchase a set of books strictly for their color palette, but I do find there to be tooonnnns of value in the aesthetics of old books (separate from their equally-valuable inner pages). The designs and typography of vintage book covers are so unique and visually appealing. Such effort and detail was put into the cover art in the past that I find them incredibly inspiring and beautiful.

I agree that books are meant to be read, As someone who gets giddy in a bookstore, this books as decorations trend thing really tweaks my melon.

This is only further proof that fools and their money are soon parted, and that I need to curate my Etsy shop to better take advantage of the multitudes of idiots out there.

I'm literally laughing out loud at this. Buying books by color is nothing new at all.

In the "olden days", one bought a book, then had it bound in the color and material of one's choice.

And used book sellers have always sold books "by the yard" in a particular color if the buyer wishes. Google "books by the yard" if this be your pleasure.

http://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Books-by-Color-c3.htm Cheaper alternatives. Lot's of retail places use services like this. Mowgli's book covers appeal to my OCD.

I'll admit to color coding my books, and it works very well for me. But I really don't have the bookshelf real estate to start using books as props. If I don't love it, if I don't read it, if I have no use for it, off to Goodwill it goes to make room for another book I do want. Even if the color looks good.

The only books I've purchased strictly for decor are the Penguin Classics clothbound set. I'm also a book reader, have bookshelves of multi-read books and work in book publishing so I think I'm aloud.

This is just asking for the awkward moment of someone trying to discuss the book you haven't read.

Seems a tad disingenuous. I like to keep on hand books only that have collectible or sentimental value or that I would reread or keep as a reference. Although in full disclosure, I will sometimes buy and read a book just because I like the cover. (Not the same as buying books just for their coordinated covers without reading them, imo.)

I'm not someone who would purchase books for decoration but I don't see why it should be completely bashed. It's a decorative element used for colour and used more like art in a room. Who's to say that you wouldn't read the books you got when you bought them by the foot. I think it'd actually be like a treasure hunt, maybe you'd find some gems you never would have read.

I have a tendency to color coordinate objects I already own, but buying books for the sake of decorating seems pretty silly, not to mention a waste of space.

I am an author and got a permission request last year through my publishing house to use my book as a set prop in a movie. My editor thought it was because they liked the color of the cover. It is a much, much happier day for me when someone writes for permission to excerpt content and recirculate my research and ideas.

This whole sad post is motivating me to close my laptop and go read a book now instead. I do not remember what the cover nor the spine look like, I am too busy reading the story. I like it so much I bet I could even find it on my bookshelf just by knowing the name of the author.

Well gees louise, now I know what to do with all those tons and tons of worthless (and yes, they are worthless because they are very badly written old pieces of bound writings) books that my mom collected just for the sake of having lots of books.
Etsy, here we come! Or ebay.
And to think I was going to toss them.
(Really, they are very badly written books by unknowns from eras long past.)

I live in a neighborhood in San Diego where all of the street names are named after famous authors. About 40 streets total. I have an on-going project to collect a book by each author. I don't buy online. I just keep a list with me and if I come across a table of old classics I'll try to find something to check off my list. I'm a reader, but doubt I'll ever read a lot of my purchases. So I guess I'm as disingenuous as the color-collectors.

I don't follow this trend myself. However, I find it funny that there are a lot of comments said against this particular trendy affectation. How is it any different from throwing a sheepskin rug over the Eames chair you never sit in or any other thing we that serves no function other than to be beautiful?

May I suggest another way of using books for something other than reading....? http://www.amazeme2012.com/ ;)

I buy book for the colors for this: http://pinterest.com/briangennett/my-work/

I'm totally OCD about the look and design of my home and everything has to be in exactly the right place-
but even I hate this color coordinated book trend. I have a large library of books and group them on shelves much like an actual library- by genre and then by author. Then if I can I try to make them look orderly by arranging by height within sections.

i'm a PhD student, so i own hundreds of books, but i own them because i read them, not because of what colour they are or how good they look stacked on a table. i organize them by subject and owned vs. borrowed, not the colour of the spine. it seems so silly to me to buy ANY book because of how it would look on a shelf and not what's inside it.

Seems overdone. As a book lover, I have books all over my house, because I actually read them, not because it's trendy. I can see how a few artfully placed books has it's place, but I find it odd that there is a niche market for this.

what? is this really a thing?

While I know AT is basically a design site, I agree with all the posters who indicate books are to be read . . . not provide elements of a design. I want my books on the shelves by author's last name so I can find what I'm looking for. I do NOT want to remember a specific book by color. I prefer my "rainbows" to be outdoors.

This is hilarious. If I caught one of my friends pretending they were in the middle of "Sports for the Handicapped" or "Poems Including Christ and Christmas," they would never live it down.

I once visited a man in his apartment and he had a bookcase full of beautiful, leather bound books. He told me he had bought them with the apartment because they looked good. I never saw him again.