We have a lot of books. Not as many as we’ve had at other times in life when we enjoyed “midwestern” quantities of residential space, but even in California’s Wine Country, we have a lot of books. Before moving from my native Nebraska to Texas for grad school, I unloaded hundreds of books, mainly at Bluestem Books in Lincoln, Nebraska. Life in Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, and back to Nebraska saw the number of books fluctuate by the hundreds again and again. Then, an immediate turn left to California saw us unloading hundreds and hundreds of books, mainly at Jackson Street booksellers in Omaha.
Today, we have hundreds of books at home. Most books are easy to shelve, but I’ve struggled with heavy, large-format art books. I’m a comic art museum curator, so I especially have a weakness for giant artist-edition books. Stacked on their side, largest to smallest, is okay, but it can make those most oversized books on the bottom hard to grab. Also, the weight of the smaller books, especially if they’re much smaller, can cause the front cover of the bottom book to distort over time. The best solution is to store them standing upright. But, if they fall, their weight can damage books that were expensive to begin with and perhaps impossible to replace. I’ve had page blocks rip away from spines, cracked hinges, you name it. I’ve come to rely on these affordable, heavy-duty bookends to keep my biggest books on the shelf, where they belong. They’ve never let me down, even with the modest seismic activity we’ve seen. So, if you’ve been needing good bookends and trying to get by with the cheap little ones, don’t do that. These are money well-spent. Your books will be happier and safer with these sturdy bookends.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.