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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
A bookshelf is a piece of furniture for keeping books that have been read, books that are going to be read, and books that are there to be seen. Studies show the third group is the largest, and is always at eye level.[1]
A bookshelf is a ladder for books, except that the books never climb it, and the bottom shelf is where the heaviest ones go to sulk.
Books may be arranged by author, by subject, by height or by colour. The most common arrangement, found in 71% of homes, is “wherever there was a gap”. A 2012 survey found that the average bookshelf holds 140 books, of which 38 have been read, 12 have been started, and one is not a book at all but a box shaped like a book containing a single sock.[2]
The top shelf can only be reached by standing on a chair. Things put there are never seen again, though they are dusted roughly once a decade, by accident, by someone looking for something else. Archaeologists rank the top shelf as the second-richest source of lost objects in the modern home, after the back of the sofa.
Every bookshelf can bear a certain number of books. This number is always exactly one fewer than the number of books its owner has. Furniture engineers call it the Last Paperback Constant.[3]