Alphabetically? By Genre? By read or unread? Or perhaps maybe by color? Does the last method make you feel like a weirdo? Well Kristin Hohenadel wants to let you know that arranging your books by color is not a moral failing.
“Organizing bookshelves by color, rather than by title, author, or subject, is a well-established trend. But the question of whether it is a cool design idea or proof that you are an illiterate poseur seems to spark divisive debate every time someone discovers it anew. Just last week, the New York Observer mentioned the idea in a piece on books as aesthetic objects, prompting the usual tweets of opprobrium. (From, among others, a book editor, a writer, and someone who works at NPR.) Those who are opposed to color-organizing bookshelves argue that it’s impractical, claiming they couldn’t possibly find anything that isn’t categorized by title, author, or subject in their apparently vast collections. To them, the color-organized bookshelf is a self-conscious triumph of style over substance.”
