The illiteracy-promoting interior design abomination called “backwards books”

"illiteracy-promoting interior design abomination" may be a bit of hyperbole... I won't be shelving my books backwards, but if some designers enjoy the look of backwards books, so be it. Seems like an expensive way to decorate though.

I think several designers have become confused as to the rationale behind this trend.

The purpose is detract from the books in the picture and focus on the design of the room. No one in their right mind actually thinks you're supposed to turn books around in practice. Unfortunately, there are many people not in their right mind. These people deserve to be mocked.

It is probably fair to suggest that the spines hidden don't belong to SICP or Hume's or Macaulay's histories, but to whatever the designer got from The Strand's books by the yards shelf. Why tip off the guests or the readers of the magazines that the books are Readers Digest condensed, or maybe in some language it is implausible for them to believe you know?

If I read these magazines, I might be grateful that I wasn't tempted to squint and try to read the spines.

There's a reason we put bindings on books - to protect them - I know what some of my older math books from the '80s look like, and if they'd been spine in, they'd be dead - to me this translates to 'books are things and I don't give a damn about their actual contents' I think I might seriously walk out of someone's house if I saw this.

Why do you care how other people choose to decorate their homes?

It looks like a bunch of paper that should be thrown out.

Or like the old man montage near the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey.