"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.
I consulted last year at a company that bought books in bulk as part of their cool decor http://bulkbookstore.com/ some books were interesting, but most of it was crap and, being the kind of guy I am, I was always irritated walking to my workstation down the long aisles of books with titles repeating every second case.
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.
