Book Cases

Once again, I am up against the book cases dilemma.  Do I buy or build or leave the thousands of books in boxes?  You see, I am moving again.  Each time I move—with the hopes that the new residence will provide some stasis, some sanity, some degree of permanency—I find within a few weeks of starting to unpack that the landlord or roommate is crazy, passive aggressive, a drunk, or a thief.  And I have to go through the stressful process all over again.  So the books often now stay in boxes during the probationary period, and only those I have the most immediate need for get schlepped onto makeshift bookcases—bricks and boards, milk crates, or even cardboard boxes they are already in…just flipped to their open sides so I can read the contents.
 
But finally, after twenty-nine years of living away from home (Mommy and Daddy) and after thirty-something times moving, I am going to buy my own place.  And those poor books, though they have escaped bookworms and mold and floods, thankfully, have a chance to breathe and see order and respect again. They will be shelved on book cases.  On built-ins?  On prefabricated book cases?  On old eclectic choices I make garage sale shopping for metal or wood or pressboard book cases?  God permitting, they might even be revered on brand new book cases.  But there’s the biggest conundrum: which style book cases to go with?  The options are endless, really, considering the interior decorating styles: there’s modern/contemporary, French, Mediterranean.  There’s baroque and Goth, there’s traditional, and there’s mission and eclectic and shabby chic.

I tend to go with the sturdy and understated of the Mission style book cases: these bookcases came into being long after the first bookcases in history were designed, but they take their influence—of course—from their history and purpose, which for Mission style furniture was utilitarian at best.

Book cases were not purposefully crafted until the 17th century, when the English readers found a need—when books were collected and kept.  So, therefore, in colleges and libraries, and then in select scholars and book lovers’ homes (according to the compilers of the Antique Collector’s Dictionary), in the latter part of the century, bookcases were becoming commonplace.  Then book case building efforts were passed on and picked up by others in other parts of the reading and researching world: Georgian breakfront (also known as wing) book cases were built, followed by the “upper stage glazed” bookcases and the Regency period dwarf (tiered) bookcases. 

And by the end of the 19th century, Mission style book cases, part of the pragmatic Mission style furniture set, made their way to homes thanks to the influences of the Arts and Crafts movement that was evolving, pioneered by such great creative minds as William Morris, Gustav Stickley, and Frank Lloyd Wright—through the 1920’s.  So the book cases of simple lines and solid construction may be the smartest choice in my case, regardless of whether I stay in my own place or have to move—God forbid—again.

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