Do you know what’s more aesthetically pleasing and convenient than reshelving all your books on your neatly organized, colour-coded shelf every night? Were you ever told as a kiddo to keep your room and workspace tidy? Let me introduce you to the era of the floor!
As someone who usually has three to four books on the go at once, I don’t have the time or energy to maintain a stylish bookshelf. When I’m done reading something for the day, I don’t want to have to return it to exactly the right spot on the shelf just to have to pull it back out the next day. My solution is to pop it right next to my bed – on the floor.
My stack is currently sitting eleven books tall and includes all the books I’m reading for my classes, the ones I’m using for my final essays, and my pleasure read (I’m about to get into The Grapes of Wrath since I just finished If We Were Villains). It’s super handy because instead of continuously siphoning through my shelf trying to figure out which books I need for the day and possibly missing specific ones, I simply pop on down to the floor and skim through ‘the stack’ for a quick grab-n’-go! As someone who values the most efficient system, I’m really loving my time on the floor!
If you’re still thinking: “But Hannah – I value nothing more than my colour-coded, organized-by-height shelf of books! The aesthetics simply cannot be beaten!” let me introduce you to another one. I’m absolutely in love with the ‘French it-girl’ book aesthetic (thanks, Pinterest!). Imagine you’re living in a studio apartment in Paris. Your bed, dressed in white linens that you rarely ever make, is right under a huge window that you leave open all the time because there is nothing better than the fresh breeze keeping you company. You look out your window, holding a cappuccino in a white ceramic mug, matching your bedding, and you see a line of Parisian homes and architecture. The sky is beautifully blue with some lingering fluffy clouds. Are you still with me? As you turn your head to gaze across your flat, mountains of books decorate your rustic hardwood floors. Old and new (but mostly used), the thick and the thin. An assortment of plays and memoirs, classics and guilty pleasures. The ones you’ll never read but hold on to because it reminds you of that time you travelled to Venice and stumbled into a used bookstore with your best friend that lives a million miles away, and she convinced you that this was the book you could not live without, even though it’s in a language you can’t understand. And the ones you picked up because booktok told you were earth-shattering, and you keep promising yourself you’ll read but never do. You look over to another stack comprised of the books you read two summers ago when you were still seeing that blonde girl who was obsessed with floral sundresses and had the most wonderful smile. And then there’s the one you keep close to your bed. The books closest to your heart – from when you broke up with her and needed something to keep you together, the memoirs that made you want to travel the world and the ones you’re currently reading. Do you see it? There’s a coffee table with rings of coffee stains tattooed on it because you refuse to use coasters, and a stack of your favourite albums. You know – the ones with the flowers? And there’s a clear vase there too, with the yellow and orange tulips you bought yesterday at the market. Tell me this aesthetic isn’t better than whatever you have going on right now.
And let me tell you, being tidy is overrated! Just because your parents or teachers or whoever told you that their system is the only one that matters doesn’t mean you have to hang on to it now! Leave your books on the floor. Organize them however you please – but please, please, please, get rid of those shelves! They’re overrated anyways. Aspire, like me, for a house cluttered with mountains of books. For the memories each one holds. Do yourself a favour and sell those shelves – obviously for the aesthetic, but also so you can use the money to go buy yourself some new books (and a coffee)!
