Sakura Adachi, a Milanese furniture designer, has designed a bookshelf she calls "the Cave."
Those who really enjoy relaxing with a book while surrounded by books will want to order one of these (price: 2250 euros). If you prefer to do most of your reading in bed or at a desk, but like the idea, maybe your dog or cat would like a "cave." That's now also a possibility. Ms. Adachi has come out with a model designed for small dogs and cats. To order, visit her web site: Sakurah.net."The Cave" is a recent innovation in the long history of shelving books. For a good summer read see Henry Petroski, The Book on the Bookshelf (Knopf, 1999). [Hekman Library Z685 .P48 1999] Petroski is an engineer, who has also written books about the pencil and about bridges (and, believe it or not, a forthcoming book in October about the technology and culture of the toothpick). In The Book on the Bookshelf, Petroski takes the reader through various forms of shelving, from the pigeonholing of scrolls and the arrangement of medieval chained books to contemporary library shelving and such fascinating topics as the architecture of the British Museum reading room. The book ends with an appendix which lists a multitude of ways people have arranged the books in their private libraries: not just by title, or author, or size, but by color, by price, by sentimental value, by order of reading, etc.
