I was doing some after-Christmas shopping at the Bryant Park Holiday Shops yesterday and came across these literal book shelves at the Parable Ink clothing stall. How wonderfully obvious—books are speared with metal poles and secured with hex nuts for a very cheeky set of shelves. With open sides, they wouldn’t be a sensible place to store literature, but quite clever for a display cabinet. With a closet cleaning and $2 at the hardware store, these would be fairly easy to make, but if DIY is not your thing, they are also available for purchase. On January 1st the shelves are being auctioned for charity with proceeds going to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. To place your bid email the owners from their site at, parableink.com/contact.


A close-up of the simple pole, nut and book construction

The patina of old leather books would make for great shelving in an office

Anne E. Collins
Editor, PointClickHome