In response to the infamous selfie, the Guardian has set up a site for the (obviously much more interesting) shelfie. Consequently, I’ve been spending more time than I’d care to admit drooling over other people’s bookshelves. It’s also reassuring to know that there are other crazy people out there. “See?”, I told the husband. “I’m not that bad. There is someone out there who is collecting all the old Penguins ever issued.” The husband somehow looked as if he didn’t quite see the difference between these thousands of books and my thousands of books, except that mine are less orange.

(c) Panjandrum72

But that wasn’t the point, anyway. What had really caught my eye was the combination of books and birds in another shelfie:

(c) ikahn1

I did a search for the user and sure enough came across the artist’s website, which included this photo:

(c) Ingrid Kahn

“Wouldn’t these blue birds be perfect in our bedroom?”, I appealed to the husband. (I have no idea if the artist even does paint birds on walls not her own, and if she did, I doubt we could afford it. But still. And our bedroom is mainly blue and white.) “Be realistic,” the husband admonished. “If it’s a vertical wall and if it’s in this house, you will need it for bookshelves sooner or later.”

I suppose that’s true — given that the thought that crossed my mind when looking at the Guardian site was how many of the people there had managed to retain empty space in their shelves. (Any new shelf I ever had was pretty much full as soon as it was set up.) But a girl can dream …