If You Love the Academia Aesthetic, Your Bedroom Needs Book Page Wallpaper

You can actually read the room with this decor trend.

For years, bookworms and academics alike have ~turned~ to the pages of their favorite books not just for reading, but for decorating their walls—without the worry of doing anything too permanent. The creative, personal design ranges from accent walls in the bedroom to custom wall artwork in home libraries. 

The academia decor aesthetic (both dark and light versions) first took off in 2021, and it's on the rise once again. This time, it’s expanding to include more than just classic literature or vintage, thrifted books: Graphic novels, comics, illustrated books, and manga are part of the book page wallpaper trend, providing a more dynamic (and often much more colorful) edition. Passionate music fans and professionals have also jumped in, creating wallpaper comprised of old sheet music. Plus, something about the leaves changing and college students packing university libraries make it feel like the perfect time to channel this energy.

Related: How to Give Your Space a Dark Academia Refresh for Fall

The ease of putting it up and taking it down, book page wallpaper is ideal for decorating a dorm room, apartment, or other temporary living space. When the time comes to move out, you don't have to paint over your walls or worry if you've potentially damaged them.

This project only takes an afternoon to complete. You can use mounting putty, painter’s tape backing, cork board, or adhesive strips to tack book pages to your wall individually. If you’re willing to commit to a more permanent solution, DIYers often recommend using Mod Podge—this creates a sheer gloss that hardens the book pages and makes them less vulnerable to the wear and tear. Mod Podge is also relatively removable, similar to real wallpaper.

When it comes to the design, there's a lot of room for creativity: Pages can be overlapped, arranged into shapes, aligned, or displayed with small sections of wall showing in between. You might choose to cover a small section of wall (like a reading corner, window nook, or above your bed) or decorate an entire room with book pages. If you’re working with new paper, prepare for it to yellow over time as it’s exposed to light; or you can start with older books that have already begun to show their age.

Bookstagram user @adrianneasbookshelf channeled the light academic aesthetic with her book page wallpaper by hanging a few mini bouquets of pastel flowers among the pages, and TikTok creator @maybemyahadele had the same idea—but she took it a step further by using book pages to hold the bouquets together.

Related: A Home Library is the Perfect Place for Curling Up with a Book

If you'd rather not cut pages out of your books, newspaper has the same effect—but keep in mind the material tends to be thinner, and the words might not be as meaningful (unless you're a journalist or news enthusiast!). It's a much more affordable option that tends to hold up over time.

Of course, the debate over how to appropriately destroy a book for the aesthetic still rages on: Is it better to take just a few pages from multiple books? To use just one book and make the entire thing unreadable? Many agree that purchasing a book secondhand, reading it, and then using it for your wallpaper is the most ethical way to go. Others take meaningful sections from their favorite books—you may even find a few bookworms with annotated wallpaper.

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