Books do furnish a room | 7 March 2013

The first time you run out of space for your books is a rite of passage for booklovers. It’s the moment that you realise the extent of your addiction to these papery worlds. It’s also a time of anxiously wondering what on earth you’ll do with all the books you have yet to accumulate. Double stacking, piles on the floor, and visits to the charity shop are really just temporary measures; the only satisfactory solution is to get a new bookcase.

Ikea has just released colourful limited editions of their Billy bookcases – thrilling news for spatially challenged booklovers. There are three new styles of this bestselling piece of Ikea design: one has an orange background, another a blue, and the last features a queasy-making black-and-white pattern. The Sunday Times Style magazine, where I first read of these new bookcases, say that the orange and blue backgrounds (they tactfully don’t comment on the black-and-white) would ‘set off the shifting shades’ of one’s books, which they suggest arranging by colour.