PW speaks with Vanessa Dina and Claire Gilhuly

In Book corners (Chronicle, September), design director Vanessa Dina and associate food and lifestyle editor Claire Gilhuly, both at Chronicle Books, share functional and aesthetic ideas for displaying books in the home. The co-authors, who worked with photographer Antonis Achilleos on the project, spoke with P.W. about arranging colors, the importance of being able to breathe, and whether it’s okay to keep books in the bathroom.

How do each of you organize your books at home?

Gilhuly: We store books according to their function and have books in almost every room. The largest collection is in the built-in bookshelves in our family room, organized according to the tastes of each family member: my library of best-loved novels; my husband’s music books, record player and record collection; and the bottom row of children’s books for our daughter. In my home office I have an Alfred Newall reel bookcase where I display books related to my work as a cookbook and lifestyle book publisher. The shelf is behind my desk, so it’s a relevant Zoom background for work calls and a good conversation starter.

Dinah: I live in a small apartment and use every nook and cranny to store books. In Book corners, we show books on a window sill in a bathroom. My partner told me there shouldn’t be anything in the bathroom! But I tend to disagree. Organizing by color helps. I have a bunch of Penguin Classics in a hutch in my living room. They’re small books and they all have orange spines, and I keep them in a stack. We also have fun storing old paperback books in our unused fireplace. Different outward-facing spines may look messy, so we turned them inside out. Old paperback books often have colored edges and you can design with these books in an abstract way, creating patterns, zigzags or blocks of color. I’ve read them and probably won’t read them again, so they’ve become a design element.

Which windows stood out to you?

Gilhuly: One of my favorite ideas, which I saw in a bar years ago, is to use pages from vintage cookbooks as wallpapers or to frame them as works of art; in our book we refer to the idea of ​​a kitchen display where a page from a vintage cookbook is glued to the cabinet wall. And because I love the traditional aesthetic of libraries, the most iconic space for me is the library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland – it looks straight out of Hogwarts.

Dinah: We found it online and it’s in the book: a cabinet transformed into a children’s reading space. They installed a shelf and a little seat for a small child, and I found that really inspiring.

What should people keep in mind when pitching their books?

Gilhuly: It is difficult to find the right ratio of “books/decorative objects” on a shelf. The most eye-catching book exhibits aren’t overcrowded with books. They are full of art objects and curiosities, and enough empty space to allow for some visual breathing space. If something is wrong with your shelves, it’s probably related to this ratio.

Dinah: If you have the chance to create a specific location for books, like built-in shelves, that’s great. But if you’re in a smaller, more restricted space, it helps to think of the unexpected: a bar cart, a side table. And obviously, easy access is important. If I’m going to use a cookbook every day, I want it right there on my kitchen shelf.

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