‘…even crack dens glow…’

This is beautiful, just beautiful:

Last month I installed new bookshelves in a room in my house. They’re black, and my painter offered the unsolicited opinion that they might look depressing when completed. I knew he was wrong because, at the very least, the paperback shelf couldn’t help but have a cheerful orange zing a zing that comes from the Penguin spine, the most wonderfully insidious default interior design statement in our culture. Even crack dens glow with Penguins on the shelf

– Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland’s Penguin Anniversary Project, Speaking to the Past, is available on Flickr here.

I have been collecting old Penguins for a while now, mostly because I want to read them, but also because of how god-damn gorgeous they look when you have a shelf full of the beautiful things. Sadly, they are all boxed up now, but one day they will be taken out to glow again. And now, thanks to Mr Coupland, I know that I will never be content until I have black shelves to keep them on.