Books By the Foot

Now I've seen it all. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I just found a Web site by accident called Books By the Foot. They sell hardcover books. By the foot. These books are meant for display, not reading, so titles are not listed. Buyers include interior decorators and homeowners who want to add a whiff of culture to their homes by displaying artistically arranged books. You literally buy the books by the inch, be it 12 inches worth of books or 12 feet (or 100 feet).

You can specify if you want a color scheme, such as all earthtone book covers, or all green or blue books, or maybe you want all vintage-look books. Or how about monochromatic "wrapped" books where all books are wrapped in colored paper according to your color scheme. If you like uniformity, you can buy sets of encyclopedias, or indulge in "boutique" books with theme-type covers, such as African animal prints--zebra, leopard, giraffe, etc. You can buy books by subject matter, or "chopped" books that have had the bottoms lopped off to make them fit smaller shelves.

My personal favorite, one I must admit I very much liked the look of, was the Newspaper Decoupage Accent line, where book spines were covered in vintage-look newspapers. For about $25 per linear foot, you can have this distinctive accent for your bookshelves!

Photo credit: Books By the Foot

I'll admit that I love the look of rows and rows of books lined up artistically in bookshelves, with the occasional knick-knack or treasured memento tucked among the books here and there. That's how many rooms in my house look: lots of bookshelves filled with books and treasures. The difference is that every book was hand-picked by me, and most of them have been read by me. To date, I have over 5,000 books, most of them hardbacks, many purchased for a song from library book sales. I love these books, and love how they give warmth and character to a room. But I do find it a little sad to think of books merely as objects to be looked at but not to be read.