Australian House & Garden

Libraries

With the demise of formal entertaining at home, a custom already on the wane because no one can be fussed any more and dealt a death blow by the global financial crisis, homeowners need to find a use for the dedicated dining room.

More literate types are contemplating a home library, a room lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves, preferably containing books that have been or will be read. Decorators who install libraries usually don’t much care what books are stacked on shelves so longs as the bindings suit a colour scheme. In Melbourne, a millionaire has stacked the shelves of his custom-made bookcases with red cloth-bound copies of proceedings in the Victorian Parliament, de-accessioned from the parliamentary library and destined never to be read, their sole purpose being to compliment the wall colour.

One English company actually manufactures fake books that can be bought by the metre. These are glued to plywood and intended to fool folks into imagining the owner is well read. But books are, or should be, sources of information and wisdom, not decorative accessories.

A good library should be furnished with comfortable (preferably worn) chairs, rugs and couches and efficient lamps, the light from which can be directed to an open book. Some of the best and cosiest libraries I know can also serve as—yes - a dining room. An antique dropsied table can often double as a dining table for four for a cosy supper. And given the new fashion for apartment living, there’s a practical side to lining a room with books. As our cities become noisier there are few better ways of isolating racket from traffic or inconsiderate neighbours than a thick, sound absorbing wall or walls of books than can create a space as exclusive of extraneous and unwelcome noise as a sound recording studio. Books can furnish a room as efficiently as they can a mind.

• Posted By: Leo At Large at 10.20AM

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