How Book Nooks Bring Magic Little Worlds to Your Bookshelves

None of us are likely to get one of those movie contraptions where pulling down a specific book opens a secret room behind the shelves. But at least we have book nooks, which places the secret room in full view on the shelf itself. They’re just a bit too small to walk into, unfortunately.

You may have seen book nooks appearing online and atop the shelves of that friend who really, really likes to read. They’re tiny models—a bit like dioramas—that present miniature worlds snugly nestled between books. The little scenes vary. They’re often back alleys, fantasy realms, street corners, gardens, cityscapes, and tiny ornamental libraries that often look way better than the ones we have at home. 

Whatever the world, they add a bit of mystique to a bookshelf where a plant or picture frame or blank space might otherwise go. 

1. From Tokyo Alleys to Fantasy Worlds
2. A Book Nook for Every Genre

From Tokyo Alleys to Fantasy Worlds

People have been putting decorative dividers on their bookshelves to break up the monotony for centuries, but book nooks are a rather modern incarnation generally traced to a Japanese artist only known to the internet as “Monde.” Inspired by Japanese dioramas—which tend to create realistic scenes—Monde transported the form to the bookshelf based around the theme of “Tokyo on shelves.” The nooks exhibited at the 2018 Design Festa in Tokyo caught attention online, and soon other artists were inspired by Monde to make their own, with the shelf artform even getting its own 96,000-pkus member Reddit page.

The book nook is a trinity of three niche worlds that were already neighbors, including craft groups, puzzle enthusiasts, and readers; craft artists regularly post their designs online for puzzle enthusiasts to build and readers to adorn their shelves with. 

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Today the tiny shelf worlds have spawned a pretty big market, and they come in various forms depending on how much time you want to put into it. You can find:

• Fully assembled models
• DIY book nook kit puzzles you build yourself
• Book nook files that can be 3D printed and placed on a bookshelf

They’ve come a long way from realistic Tokyo alleys to little magic worlds normally found in the adjacent novels. But instead of manifesting those worlds through reading, you have to build them. 

A Book Nook for Every Genre

Whereas once book nooks were limited to Monde’s stunning Tokyo-based creations, there are now so many different themes that readers could place a particular design alongside a related genre of books. A nook of A Midsummer's Night Dream might nestle against your old college Shakespeare textbooks; a mini cyber city nook pairs well with your slew of dystopian punk sci-fi novels; and your mini bookstore or library nook could sit next to, well, any of your books.

Among the more amusing creations include scenes of abandoned submarines, detective agencies, magical pharmacies, a 1940s train cabin, natural history museums, and time travel stations, just to name a few. And yes, of course, there’s a Harry Potter-themed one as well. With enough book nooks one could cultivate a bookcase that’s more nooks than books, with shelf after shelf of different scenes. 

Their popularity is no accident. These days, our little home libraries feel like an analog defiance of the omnipresent digital world. People love gazing at their bookshelves from a distance and letting their mind wander around all the stories contained within. And with book nooks, the perspective draws in even closer.

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