Shelf Respect by Annie Austen #ShelfRespect @BooksSphere @Kirsteenastor #Bookstagram #BookShelfie

There's no such thing as too many books, simply not enough places to put them

Decluttering is all the rage, but what do you do when your preferred interior decor is miles of overstuffed bookshelves? If you can't bring yourself to clear your collection, SHELF RESPECT will validate your life choices.

Do you alphabetise your books or organise by genre... or (heaven forbid) colour? Have you merged your collection with your other half's? (And do you write your name inside the cover, just in case?) Do you keep all the books you've read, or only the most cherished? Is there such a thing as too many books? (No.)

Bound to provoke (good-natured) debate between Bibliophiles, SHELF RESPECT is a charmingly illustrated book in defence of towering TBR piles and overflowing shelves... no matter how you choose to organise them.

Shelf Respect : A Book Lover's Defence by Annie Austen was published in hardback by Sphere on 24 October 2019. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.


This is a gorgeously presented little book that will delight any book lover. Absolutely perfect as a gift and also looks beautiful upon your own bookshelves.

This really is a celebration of the bookshelf, and the many ways in which people arrange their books. Do you shelve alphabetically by author?  Do you have different shelves for different genre? Some people arrange their books by colour, or by height. There's no wrong way to do it, everyone has their own way!

This is just a short book but is split into lots of chapters, some of them are just a page or so, whilst some are longer.   Annie Austen wrote this book after seeing an article in Ideal Home magazine in 2017 which included a photograph of a set of bookshelves where the books had all been placed with the pages facing outwards.    Remember I said that there is no wrong way?   Well, I was wrong - pages facing out is WRONG!


LOOK!  Just look at this!  As you can imagine, there was a huge response to this on social media!

The book is not just about arranging your bookshelves though. It's packed full of interesting facts that you didn't even realise that you wanted to know, including:

Ten books found on Osama Bin Laden's bookshelf

Six weird book titles

Strange things found in books

There's also some great discussion pieces too, and I particularly enjoyed 'Is it compulsory to finish a book once we've started?' and laughed heartily at 'Ten genuine one-star reader reviews of classic literature'.

I really enjoyed this little book. It's entertaining and informative and really does look fabulous upon a shelf! 

Annie Austen is the (highly organised) proud curator of hundreds of books (spine out, by author, or course).

When not reading, she can be found dreamily scrolling through Instagram #Bookstagram #BookShelfie for #Shelfspiration.

She believes that people without books should not be trusted.