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Jill

Pile of books cardboard stool

Cory Doctorow at 1:45 pm Thu, Feb 12, 2009

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This cardboard stool, printed to appear to be a stack of books, can hold up to 200kg.

Tabouret en carton Leseratte (via Cribcandy)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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  • Anonymous

    On the same theme, here is the “Bibliochaise” aka library-chair
    http://archrecord.construction.com/products/tradeshows/images/0901_TS8.jpg
    http://www.nobodyandco.it/

  • buddy66

    I could use a couple of these, seeing as how I SAVAGED MY LIBRARY LAST YEAR, damn my eyes!

    I guess I miss the visual comfort they apparently gave me.

    Anybody know of any stateside vendors? I’m inquiring…

  • Takuan

    relax Wolfie! Nobody wants a 1984 Physicians Desk Reference or a CRC 51st Edition Handbook of Physics and Chemistry. Gawds, just the obsolete references alone should make a sofa at least.

  • wolfiesma

    I dunno…. physics and chemistry handbook and a physician’s reference might go over okay with these guys…

    http://www.africanlibraryproject.org/

    The deal is, you pay to have a box of books sent to small start-up libraries in Africa so that people with limited access to books might have more. Just a thought.

  • technogeek

    One furniture catalog I get (for reasons beyond my ken) carries several cabinets styled to look like piles of oversized leatherbound books. (File drawer is two books high; normal desk drawer is one.) Nice thing about that one is that it has some dimensionality to it, unlike the flat sides of this (admittedly MUCH cheaper) box.

    Outside of “what book lover leaves them piled on the floor?”, and the large size, and the fact that cabinets actually do have feet (ruining the effect), it’s a cute conceit.

  • Brainspore

    “I’m such a voracious reader that there are books in my stool!“

  • edinblack

    Looks like it’s got plenty for Germanophiles!

  • Takuan

    good idea, instead of chucking these old books I’m going to glue some into a block. What do you think? PVA? Epoxy? I don’t care about the weight.

  • thickdot

    Check out this Sit Up & Read platform bed:

    http://www.moreplatformbeds.com/NoBot/Japanese-Style-Platform-Bed.htm

    I’m considering getting it.

  • wolfiesma

    Whoa there, partner. Why would you want to introduce those chemicals into your environment? I thought you were going to donate them to the library. Give someone else a chance to read them before you start spreading toxic glue over everything. (Said with love, of course.)

  • Gilbert Wham

    Never mind obsolete books, what about ones that are, well, fucking rubbish? As an SF and second-hand book aficionado, there are many tomes which I acquire that are subsequently hurled across the room with a curse as they are fucking awful (actually the last one I did that with was bought new on a whim. You never can tell). Furniture is all a lot of books are good for.

  • Takuan

    thought about that Wolfie, but considering the mass, the distance,the staleness of the data – it make no sense. It’s like developing countries getting deluged with donated “computers” that are so old they are e-waste, even if they work.

    We should have a Sacrifice of the Books Festival. Mid-summer bonfires and dedications at library shrines. We can placate the “every tome is sacred”
    (hey..musical number in there…) by giving them the chance to “rescue” the offerings. So long as they store them in their own homes.

  • Robbo

    Brainspore’s comment made me laugh so hard I forgot what I was gonna say.

  • Brainspore

    Thanks. It was either that or a “Reader’s Digest” pun.

  • Boeotian

    #1: “what book lover leaves them piled on the floor?”

    The ones that love them so much that there’s no possible space for all of them in shelves. I am fortunate enough to know quite a lot of those lovers, and to count myself among them.

  • Gilbert Wham

    “what book lover leaves them piled on the floor?”

    Unless I can turn my flat into some sort of Klein bottle, allowing me to utilise extra dimensions for shelving, me, that’s who.

  • GoldMatenes

    Let’s get this out of the way.

    THEY’RE NOT REAL BOOKS.

    Read the post again.

  • JJR1971

    Piled on the floor, spare chairs, coffee tables, etc. Oh yeah, I’m there. My apartment is so cramped, though, I wouldn’t have room for this stool.

    I like some of the book-shaped furniture they make for children’s libraries, too; those are cool.

  • Piper

    I like Takuan’s idea. The idea of using truly obsolete books instead of a printed box makes it cooler. Why not use good old Elmer’s School glue? It’s cheap and non-toxic. Similar to bookbinder’s PVA, just not as flexible when dry.
    I know –it’s made of animals –somebody’s gonna complain…

  • Anonymous

    People who have book-decorated furniture make me cringe. Why would anyone want to *look* like they have piles of old books around without actually *being* the kind of person who has piles of old books around?

    Go drop a hundred bucks at a thrift store/library sale and stuff your apartment the proper way.

  • buddy66

    #17 Anonymous:
    “People who have book-decorated furniture make me cringe … Go drop a hundred bucks at a thrift store/library sale and stuff your apartment the proper way.”

    Sure. And where will you be when it comes to shlepping all that shit up and down stairs, across town, apartment-to-apartment, house-to-house, across country? Bah.

    You’ll be typically anonymous then.

    I want those goddamn dead trees scanned and online, all of them, every dusty, smelly, heavy, fucking one of them!

    –former bookstore owner

  • GoldMatenes

    #21 Gilbert Wham -

    Your comment about hurling books across the room meshes so nicely with your name it made me smile.

    And it’s true. If you wandered down to your local thrift store and rifled through the SF books, you’d hear your internal sense of narrative screeching in pain.