My eye started twitching the first time I heard about books being sold by the foot, available in whatever colors were needed to complement a room's decor.
This site, for instance, sells "Authentic books for interior design, décor, wedding centerpieces, movie props, staging and more!" At least they sell "authentic" books. If that's too much trouble, or you want to avoid the musty smell of pages full of knowledge in your living room, you can buy fake ones online at BezosMart. Ironic, if you ask me, given Amazon's humble origins.
Since social media can ruin anything, even something as awful as decorative books, it's now working on doing it to this trend. Interior Design TikTok has come up with a name for it: "Bookshelf Wealth".
Kailee Blalock, an interior designer in San Diego, posted a video to TikTok last month that sought to define bookshelf wealth and school viewers in achieving the aesthetic in their own homes.I wonder if I can get a job working for an interior designer where I break the spines on books, dog-ear a few pages, scribble a random note or two in the margins, and maybe leave a yellowed old Fresh Market receipt in the pages like a bookmark.
“These aren’t display books,” Ms. Blalock, 26, cautions in the video, which has been viewed over 1.3 million times. “These are books that have actually been curated and read.”
