Books can transform a room, but the last thing you want is them cluttering the space especially if an influx of Xmas visitors is looming. We check out the best ways to display and store books.
By Gabrielle Fagan
Even if you're not a swot or a book worm chances are you've got at least a few books lying around your home, or maybe feel they're simply cluttering up space.
If so you're missing an inexpensive interior trick because well displayed books can transform a home, no matter whether they're valuable leather bound first editions or just a motley collection of beach battered holiday reads.
Their decorative covers will provide essential colour and interest to a space, and the titles can reveal a lot about their owner.
It would be hard to find a more fervent enthusiast of displaying books than writer Leslie Geddes-Brown.
Her home boasts the equivalent of a mini-library in the living room as well as shelves groaning with books in the kitchen, bathroom and lining the walls of the downstairs cloakroom.
"Although writers like to believe that books have a higher, sterner purpose," says Leslie with a smile, "in fact they do also furnish a room".
"Take an unadorned space, cover one wall with crowded bookshelves, add a chair and a table, also crowded with books, and you have a furnished room."
To prove her point, Leslie has sought homes around the world where books truly star and whose interiors she reveals in her new lavishly illustrated book, Books Do Furnish A Room.
Leslie, former deputy editor of World of Interiors magazine, recognises that not everyone is a serious reader or researcher or wants a library, but she suggests books in modest batches should be successfully displayed in decorative bookcases.
"Books, in my view, should be in every corner of the house, with the possible exception of the larder," she says firmly. "To me, a room without books is missing an essential feature, as important as lights, chairs or carpets. And they tell you so much about a person.
"When I visit friends houses it's always heartening to see a few bodice-rippers and thrillers in among the Booker prize-winners! You can tell a minimalist because all the decorative covers will be hidden under plain wrappers, or a rebel who leaves books piled in untidy heaps."
Certainly the remarkable success of Ikea's simple Billy bookcase, which celebrates its 30th birthday this year, demonstrates that books are an essential in the modern home.
Since Billy's creation by Scandinavian, Gillis Lundgren - who made an initial, casual sketch of its design on a handy table napkin - a total of 41 million have been sold. Laid out end to end they would stretch almost twice around the world at the equator.
Lundgren's delighted at the popularity of his versatile concept which comes in a range of types and sizes.
"I'm particularly happy that Billy has made it possible for so many people to build their own little library," he says.
"In the old days books were quite uncommon in most homes. These days everyone has books, which is as it should be."
Follow Leslie's guide to bringing out a home's beauty with books, and check out some best buy bookshelves from formal cabinets to the unusual, those shaped like a cloud or a strand of ivy.
:: Style's a closed book
Look around your home and see if you can spy corners or crannies or larger spaces that can be enhanced by books.
Make tailor-made shelves distinctive by asking a carpenter or shelf supplier to tailor and vary their layout to suit your particular book collection.
For instance, reams of compact paperbacks need less height between each shelf, and then you could break up the uniformity by making a feature with a deeper shelf for large height books.
A open space under the stairs might be an ideal space for book shelves, or perhaps an empty fireplace filled with bright red books as an eye-catching substitute for flickering flames. But do make sure the chimney is sealed properly, and there is an air vent so as to avoid damp.
"If a living room is very large, an oversized set of bookshelves will reduce the space and add warmth to the whole," says Leslie.
"Please yourself in how you display your books. But when the prevailing decor is casual, cottagey or comfortable, books can echo this by not being too rigorously organised.
"Of course in a formal room, whether Georgian or minimalist, the opposite principle applies. You could display your books from arranging them by size, grouping all those with the same colour covers, or by subject, or if you're orderly alphabetically."
Use a bookcase as a room divider, far preferable to a dividing wall in a dark space. Choose one with open shelves if you want to allow more light through the room.
Budget buy: Dwell's excellent, competitively priced storage units on lockable wheels make great room dividers. Large Mobile Storage Unit, £375, divided into 16 compartments in glossy white or £325 in oak finish.
:: Volume control
Smaller homes and demands on space mean most of us don't want books spilling everywhere, but it's a shame to hide them in boxes especially when there are so many brilliant book shelves and units around.
My favourite for uber-cool, contemporary style is a Dedale Frame Bookshelf, £1,738 from Roche Bobois. The wall unit is made from a material which looks like thick glass, available in a lacquer or satin finish, and in a choice of colours - white, black, orange or bold red.
For elegant informality, John Lewis' Pisa ladder-style walnut unit, £190, is a winner. It can come five shelves, or with two shelves and a desk, £161.
There's a fashionable Scandinavian look to OKA's dresser style desk, the Borgholm, £850, and its decorative back board incorporates three roomy shelves. A Petworth Cabinet, £1,095, in dark wood with four doors with open chicken wire panels could conjure a French chateau atmosphere, and its handsome Library shelves, in various sizes, start from £595.
Budget buy: Ikea's Billy bookcases start from £9.99 for a basic white unit 46x106cm. The extensive range now includes a new Billy Bjasta, £39, available with a funky graffiti-style interior and made to celebrate the product's 30th birthday.
:: Turn the pages
Vintage books can be turned into art by displaying them so the spines are against the wall and the gilt-edged pages face outwards to create a glimmering bookshelf, which will catch the light.
If you don't own any old volumes, try an online dealer such as Golden Books Group, which sells books with gilded pages, or source them at antique fairs or second hand bookshops.
"Any old books can be given a facelift so they star on a shelf. Disguise them with a home-made plain paper cover, or use old wallpaper, or exotic newspapers such as Chinese or Russian ones for intriguing book jackets," says Leslie.
Make the bookshelf as much of a feature as the books it holds. An imaginative shelf resembling a section of garden ivy creeping up the wall is £92.98 by Susan Bradley at Hidden Art Shop.
Trendy kitsch bookends featuring the famous television character Morph, £19.99, or enjoy a twist on the theme - a Bookshelf clock, £19.99. It's made up of three 'books' in yellow, red and blue, with clock hands positioned on the spine of the middle book. Both from The Contemporary Home.
Budget buy: Daydreamers might covet a book shelf unit in the shape of a cloud: Cirus Small Cloud shelf, £18.67, with two glass shelves by Ibride at Nest. Or, join the Billy fan club and spend £2.49 on a new Billy bookend, featuring a bright red letter B.
:: Book ends
The Contemporary Home: 0845 130 8229/www.tch.net
Dwell: 0845 675 9090/www.dwell.co.uk
Golden Books Group: 01271 883 204/www.goldenbooksgroup.co.uk
Hidden Art: www.hiddenartshop.com
Ikea: www.ikea.com
John Lewis: 08456 049 049/www.johnlewis.com
Nest: 0114 243 3000/www.nest.co.uk
OKA: 0844 815 7380/www.okadirect.com
Roche Bobois: 020 7431 1411/www.roche-bobois.com
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