Okay, so the problem with Ikea bookcases is that they’re built for giants, or possibly people who like to keep their terrier library well organised.
It’s my fault for not checking the size, of course. I just assumed they were bookshelves, because that’s what they’re advertised as. While I have books that need 28cm deep shelves, they are relatively few compared to the ones that are happier on 20cm, or even 15cm. Standard hardbacks only need 20cm, mass-market and B-format paperbacks 15cm. The majority of my books are mass-market paperbacks, and they just look lost on a Billy.
More out of place, indeed, than a terrier would.
I may experiment with filler strips behind the books, but they’ll need to be fairly tall to work. Alternatively, and this is more likely, I’ll move all the deepest hardbacks onto the Ikea bookcases, put standard hardbacks at the bottom of the others, and fill the rest with paperbacks.
This isn’t really ideal, because the one thing that Billy being a bit larger enables is four shelves in a half-height bookcase. That was supposed to be a cunning way of only needing two new bookcases rather than three.
Although half-height for Billy means up to my ribcage, rather than up to my hip. They hulk. I’m scared to put them next to each other, in case they gang up on the other furniture.
Staples used to do sensibly-shallow bookcases, but they seem to have stopped.
I’ve looked at various places online, and a common problem is that you don’t get fully adjustable shelves. Also, they insist on trying to make them look pretty, or rustic, or whatever.
So I’m going to have to get some custom made, I suspect.
I have at least found places to put the two I’ve bought. Hence resolving my short-term problems with having more books than shelves.
Bookcases come in large cardboard boxes, which I’ll have to drip-feed into recycling over the next couple of weeks as there’s never enough space. This is strictly my problem, but it feels increasingly ridiculous that we have single-use packaging that has to go through a long-loop recycling process (that may not even recover anything).
Yes, in The Times of Covid we don’t want delivery drivers to have to come inside people’s homes, decant their purchases, and take the packaging away.
But post-Covid, we should do that, or at least offer it as an option. Delivery costs would be higher, environmental impact should be lower?
And we could offset the increased delivery cost by factoring more environmental externalities into business taxes.
Except that raising taxes on companies tends to be passed on to the consumer.
So we should get rid of capitalism, so there isn’t an incentive to do that.