The Three Best Modern Bookshelves in 2024

Buying and collecting books has become a bit of an obsession for me; I’ve always enjoyed reading in general, but lately I feel like I spend months waiting for my favorite authors to release a new book. I also love going to used book sales, browsing the bargain deals at Books A Million, and getting new books (or Barned & Noble gift cards) as presents for my birthday and holidays. All of this means that unfortunately, I periodically run out of space to store my books and they end up stacked randomly around the house – on my dresser, nightstand, desk, coffee tables – etc.

So, the obvious solution is always to get a new bookshelf or bookcase! I have three that I absolutely love, so wanted to share those with you. If you have any favorites for when I inevitably run out of books again at some point, let me know!

Table of Contents

A narrow & budget friendly option: 4-6 Tier Narrow Ladder Shelf

Price: $35-$45 (depending on configuration)
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I work from home and decided my work area in our basement could use a little more color, so I was looking for a narrow shelf to display my favorite books on near my desk. I’m still looking for some other items to put on it, but I’m really happy with how it turned out – I bought the most narrow, 5-tier configuration.

Pros: The shelf material is a really nice engineered wood, it comes with feet that screw in to make it easy to level on any floor, and it was only $40. It also comes with two hooks to hang items (a purse? hanging plant?) on, and it comes in a few different colors and configurations.

Con: It comes with straps to anchor it to the wall, but I don’t love them – I wish it had come with another (metal bracket?) way to anchor it. It’s not a big deal for me since we don’t have kids or pets, but might want to make sure you’re okay with the straps or think of another way to anchor it if you’re worried about that. I’ll probably keep an eye out for brackets to anchor it at some point.

A statement piece: Ashley Furniture Starmore Bookcase

Price: $550
Buy from Ashley Furniture

This bookcase was one of the first things Dom and I purchased for our house back in 2018 – I think we had it even before we bought a couch for our living room. I love it for books, but it’s also perfect to display my Christmas village around the holidays – it has a really convenient lip around the edge of the shelves to keep the fake snow from going everywhere.

Pros: It’s incredibly sturdy, holds a ton of books, and the shelves have a little lip all the way around so you don’t need to use bookends unless you want to, which is incredibly convenient. It’s really big, so make sure and measure your space before you get it.

Cons: From the reviews, it sounds like it’s sometimes a little hard to put together yourself; I think we bought it when they were running a deal on free assembly. It’s really heavy, so it may be worth paying for the assembly. It’s also expensive, so I would watch for a sale or sign up for emails from Ashley and wait for a coupon that works on it.

A DIY built in: Industrial Pipe Shelves

Price: Around $1000 of materials for the size and solid wood we used
We used this post from The Design Twins as a guide, but modified it so the supports are also sitting on the ground since we knew we were filling it with books

Dom had wanted something like this for ages, so we finally decided to make it happen about a year ago. I love projects and putting things together, and even I would say I’m not sure I would build something like this again in a future house. We absolutely loved how it turned out so I think it was worth it, but it took two full weekends + the five evenings in between those weekends to put together. It was incredibly challenging to get completely level in all directions; after struggling for a while, we realized the root of the problem was that the wall we were putting it on was not level.

One other (important) thing to note if you build this is to think about how big your wall is vs how big your shelves are; you have to make sure there is enough space on one side of all of the supports to slide the shelves into them. We wouldn’t have been able to put the shelves on if we had assembled all three pipe supports and then tried to slide the shelves in because there isn’t enough room to the left of the supports; this takes up most of the wall. So, we assembled the two supports on the right, attached them to the wall, and then built the third support around the shelves.

Pros: Built in, sturdy, can choose any wood stain color, can build any size you’d like

Cons: Have to put supports in studs which limits where you can put it (I wouldn’t trust screwing it into just anchors if you’re filling it with books like we did), time consuming to build, and a pretty expensive project

Best bookends for any bookshelf: MerryNine Plastic Bookends

Price: $17 for three sets
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I bought these for the both the ladder and DIY bookshelf, and they work perfectly. If you have a hardback book on the end, you can put the cover over it so you don’t see it at all; if you have a paperback, it still lets you see the cover.