As the Book Goes, So Goes the Bookshelf

Nathan Schneider writes in The Smart Set about the demise of the bookshelf as a visual of our intellectual development.

As I look over my own shelf, I see my life pass before my eyes. The memories grafted onto each volume become stirred and awakened by a glance at the spine, which presents itself to be touched, opened, and explored. Without the bookshelf's landscape to turn to, that manifest remainder from a lifetime of reading, how would one think? What would one write?