How to Build a Bookshelf out of Books

1.   Gather your collection of read and unread cheap or free paperback books (the thinner the better) that you are willing to desecrate by drilling holes into them.

2.   Greatly underestimate the time it will take to build the bookshelf.

3.   Start drilling uniform holes through the center of the books. Insert a dowel rod through them. Lined-up compactly, these books will serve as your shelves.

4.   (Optional) Drop the project altogether and go hiking on the foggiest peak you can find, possibly getting lost and wishing you were back home working on the bookshelf.

5.   Drill holes through the wood panels that will serve as the sides of your shelf, and then insert the dowel rod through them. (I do not recommend using basal wood, which I used, because it’s very flimsy and does not provide strong support for a bookshelf larger than three shelves.)

6.   Glue the shelves to the panels.

7.   Glue more books the sides of the wood panels, so as to conceal the wood.

8.   Stand the shelf up and pray it won’t collapse. Put books on it and don’t ever touch it again.



9.   Weigh the effort you put into the bookshelf versus the outcome. It may be a bookshelf comprised of more books than it holds. Hopefully you feel that you broke even overall.

10.   (Optional) Go kayaking down Big River while on call for work, inadvertently find yourself in the sea, and incur salt water damage to your phone, thereby wishing you had transferred your bookshelf photos earlier. Follow these steps to repair your phone.