Book Spine Poetry That Speaks Volumes

American artist Nina Katchadourian has what could aptly be described as a bit of a book fetish. Having spent the last 20 years trawling through libraries and personal collections across the globe in search of books that she can organise into meaningful stacks of "spine poetry", it seems fair to describe the artist as a fully fledged bibliophile.

The Sorted Books project has been a labour of love for Katchadourian, who has now amassed over 130 stacks of books, displaying them as either the physical cluster or as photographs. The resulting poetry is at times quirky, sometimes thought-provoking, often laugh-out-loud funny and even touchingly poignant.

For the artist the hope was that each stack would represent the unique character of the collections they were drawn from. Katchadourian writes that "the clusters from each sorting aim to examine that particular library's focus, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies — a cross-section of that library's holdings." Beyond this, it is the inspiration Katachadourian gains from the books she finds that has meant this project remains ongoing and unfinished, whether this be the aesthetic beauty of the covers, the highly tactile nature of well-loved literature or simply an enduring passion for the written word.

Have a look at some of our favourite clusters below or head to Amazon to get your hands on your own photograph.