Bookshelf

Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every shelf is different and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop and another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. Writer and historian Lydia Pyne finds bookshelves to be holders not just of books but of so many other things: values, vibes, and verbs that can be contained and displayed in the buildings and rooms of contemporary human existence. With a shrewd eye toward this particular moment in the history of books, Pyne takes the reader on a tour of the bookshelf that leads critically to this juncture: amid rumors of the death of book culture, why is the life of the bookshelf in full bloom? Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction. What’s in a name? A room without books The lives of bookshelves Cicero’s shelves Chapter 1 From medieval to modern: Bookshelves in chains The oldest still-chained shelves in the world So what are chained libraries? A thousand years of chains: Hereford Cathedral Digital books & digital chains: The medieval legacy What are chains about? Chapter 2 The things that go on a bookshelf The small library: Putting books on children’s bookshelves Putting books on a bookshelf Display & storage: Books & not-books How to read a bookshelf Chapter 3 Bookshelves that move The thousands of books shelved in ships What does it mean for a shelf to move? Movable vs. fixed shelves Moving the bookshelves Making more bookshelves move: Other kinds of mobility Still, they move Chapter 4 Bookshelves as signs and symbols The bookshelf as a scene & a symbol Secret shelves in secret rooms From power and privilege to Marvel and Marengi The unwritten future of bookshelves Chapter 5 The life cycle of a bookshelf In which, bookshelves are installed at the New York Public Library Bookshelves brim with biological metaphor Meet the megafauna: Twentieth-century libraries Bookshelves with a bauplan The death and resurrection of bookshelves Conclusion. The plural futures of bookshelves Books without shelves & bookless libraries The many lives of bookshelves Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index