building a home library
Baltimore Read Aloud was named an expert on ApartmentGuide. We share an excerpt below. Read the full article here: 7 Guidelines for Building a Home Library in Your Apartment. ApartmentGuide is a subsidiary of Redfin.com.
Excerpt from 7 Guidelines for Building a Home Library in Your Apartment by Jeremy Steckler
If you’re looking for a more adventurous way of building a home library, or if your books are overflowing your shelves, try freeing your books to live in your space with you.
Kitty Felde, host of the Book Club for Kids podcast, has plenty of advice on how to live among your books. “At our house, there are bookshelves in every room, as well as a reading nook. But why not tuck books into unexpected places? If it's out of sight, it's out of mind. So how about a stack of books within reach of a bathtub for a relaxing read; colorful picture books in toy boxes as an alternative to trucks and Legos; or a book tucked into a kitchen cupboard, next to a box of breakfast cereal? Who says books have to stay on shelves?”
The idea of freeing your books to live fully within your space is one shared among many collectors and book lovers. “Books should be an integral part of your life and this means not just a reading room but in many areas of your living space. This could mean selected shelves in the living room for favorites and special editions, space in the kitchen for cookbooks, and ideally, a reading nook or study where all the rest of your books can be carefully organized in a variety of ways to suit your moods and activities,” says Danielle Bruckert, editor of Free Kids Books.
Creating little mini-libraries throughout is another great way of displaying your titles. “For more visual interest, create stacks of three to five books to display throughout your apartment. You can organize the stacks by theme, genre, or color. Each stack becomes a chance to read or reread a title from your collection. As you walk around your apartment, you will be reminded of your passions and interests. Your guests will get a glimpse of your personality,” advises Nicole A. Johnson of social enterprise Baltimore Read Aloud which focuses on promoting and selling diverse books for children and adults. Jenna Spencer, co-owner of The Last Bookstore, seconds this idea, “Build up or stack books to make side tables or create mini-libraries throughout your home, one in every room.”
When creating mini-libraries throughout your apartment, keep in mind which books you feel comfortable sharing with others. “How you ‘expose’ your home library to visitors is a little soul-revealing,” says Christine Longmuir of Two Rivers Bookstore. “For instance, poetry books are an intimate, secret joy for me that I keep in the bedroom. On the other hand, I also have a cookbook problem. Those books are flamboyantly displayed in categories: vegetarian, vegan, general, and food essay. Decide what to reveal to any guest and arrange them lovingly.”