Ikea betting against the future of the book

With all the recent hubbub about the fate of indie bookstores (especially the sniping over a petition to save the city’s St. Marks Books), you’d think we’re nearing a critical choke point in the industry’s future. Discount furniture embassy Ikea is already betting against the printed book. The Economist reports Ikea is releasing a new, deeper version of its popular $50 “Billy” bookcase designed more as decoration to hold “ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffe-table-tome” — but not, notably, ye olde ink-and-paper bundles of words. Have you ever tried putting books on a too-big shelf? It messes up your whole literary feng shui! I can’t put Tom Wolfe behind Thomas Wolfe; they’d never get along! Also, some of us think pretty shelves packed with intriguing spines promising endless adventures is great decoration on its own, right? What say you?