There’s something so very British about a design firm called Not Tom, simultaneously engaging, as it does, the UK penchant for understatement and philosophical enquiry. For if Not Tom, then who? The answer is cryptically guarded, though there may be a clue in their email–“dickandharry@not-tom.com.” Ah, the British. Hilarious. My guess is that neither Tom nor Dick nor Harry had any input into Not Tom’s most visible contribution to date, the book bookshelf.

Book Bookshelf. Designed by Not Tom.

While this product further enters into the epistemological realm (one reviewer wondered if it didn’t promote “literary cannibalism”), it’s nevertheless a great idea. For where do those “remaindered” or “retired” books go when they’ve finished their rounds? Straight to the landfill, of course, to join the discarded hordes in their sad and protracted demise.

In mind, then, of this all-too frequent environmental faux pas, Not Tom decided to adhere a stack of discards to each other and then to the wall. The result is not so much the “literary cannibalism” alluded to earlier, but rather a literary effacement, since the book bookshelf’s books will never be opened again, consigned, instead, to spend eternity supporting the collective weights of weightier tomes–a muted fate, yes, but perhaps if they wanted to be read they should have been better books.

The proposition is risky for a bibliophile, since it places faith in humanity’s ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. And from what I’ve seen of the industry lately, what’s published is mostly chaff, thus begging the questions: might the pages of the logorrheic Faulkner end up mercilessly glued together? Would Beckett’s incessant jabbering be stopped before it had begun? Could Kafka and Borges enter the new millennium as a mere decorative addenda to the banalities of J.K. Rowling and Nicholas Sparks? Banish the thought but don’t banish the concept. Hopefully, in dreary old London at least, they only throw away the bad books.