Alex Johnson's Blog, page 12

Minimal bookshelf

A minimal bookshelf with gaps at both ends. Slot a book in it and it acts as a bookend.
Chan Hwee Chong

Mosquito table bookshelf

Screw and glue - less furniture. The design came from the pursuit of stability and balance without the need of any physical or chemical unions.
Bruno Suraski

Expired library books photo series

Photographer Kerry Mansfield shows old, well-worn library books with titles ranging from Charlotte’s Web and Madeline in London to the Babar series... For photographer Kerry Mansfield, library books are full of stories and are part of a disappearing shared experience that deserves to be studied and chronicled. Her photo series Expired captures former library books, showcasing the unique traits they’ve gained during their time in circulation. Mansfield photographed over 180 books to create the 175 photographs in the series. (She plans to shoot 75 more.) Seventy-three of the images have been collected into a book, each copy with its own library check-out card and envelope in the front.
Architectural Digest

Library bus

Peter Callesen has recently been working on the decoration of a public library bus, which is a commission work for the Danish Art Council in collaboration with the Borough of Guldborgsund, at Falster in the southern part of Denmark. First Peter Callesen has photographed around 500 different books from the local library, He then asked the local residents of the area to come up with their own titles for books, which he afterwards exchanged with the old titles. This has resulted in around 500 different authors and made-up titles, which now embellish the exterior of the bus in a mosaic pattern of books in different bright colors. Some examples of the book titles:

Daniel Holst Kjeldesen : The Frog With No Hand
Laust Kjæp Dengsøe : Jelly Wars
Kine Torstensen : I Wish I Were A Professional Cinderella
Ramses II : My Life In A Coffin
Eric von Zoo : Singing with Animals
Tom Jerne: As Far As I Remember
Inger Malling: Don't Miss Out On Anything
Dirk Sværte: I always give up

Peter Callesen

Bookshelves in the IKEA Reading Rooms

As the boundaries between our work and home lives become more blurred, it’s become harder to switch off. Our homes aren’t the haven they once were. Yet reading for just six minutes a day can be enough to reduce stress levels by more than two-thirds. That’s why we’ve created a series of reading spaces dedicated to pure relaxation at IKEA Wembley. Curl up with the finest fiction from The Man Booker Prize 2018 longlist. Book a slot from Tuesday 31st July – Sunday 5th August and get some well-earned time out.
IKEA

Behind the Desk of a Used-Book Buyer

"Books come to me in cardboard boxes, paper bags, reusable totes, children’s organizational cubes, rattan baskets, and plastic bins. These are all a welcome sight; the books will tend to be recently purchased and in reasonable condition. What I dread are the decrepit cardboard boxes or trash bags. Books schlepped in a rippling thirty-gallon plastic bag are not books in reasonable condition; they are books which have become recyclables or a mold hazard. And yet occasionally there are treasures."
More at Popula

Bookmark bookcase

The books we are currently reading can easily be misplaced or the page lost. This slimline bookcase can solve these problems. The bookcase stores a minimum of four books, holding them open at the current page. This makes a feature of the book you are currently reading and also acts as a bookmark.
Rachel Proctor

Home library design ideas

Kit Kemp explains how shelves of carefully chosen books can transform a room.
More at Country Life

Magic Library: A Jacob's Ladder for Book Lovers

This classic creative amusement uses optical illusion to surprise, inspire, and focus energy. Crafted from wood and hand-painted to look like a stack of leather-bound volumes, it will keep your imagination in perpetual motion.
Chronicle Books

Shelf Life

My latest book Shelf Life will be published by The British Library in early October. Here's the info:

Books; reading, collecting and the physical housing of them has brought the book-lover joy and stress for centuries. Fascinated writers have tried to capture the particular relationships we form with our library, and the desperate troubles we will undergo to preserve it. With Alex Johnson as your guide, immerse yourself in this eclectic anthology and hear from an iconic Prime Minister musing over the best way to store your books and an illustrious US President explaining the best works to read outdoors. Enjoy serious speculations on the psychological implications of reading from a 19th century philosopher, and less serious ones concerning the predicament of dispensing with unwanted volumes or the danger of letting children (the enemies of books) near your collection. The many facets of book-mania are pondered and celebrated with both sincerity and irreverence in this lively selection of essays, poems, lectures and commentaries ranging from the 16th to the 20th century.