Problem: “My cookbooks are scattered around, on the nightstand, on the coffee table.”

Solution: Create a kitchen book nook. Nothing personalizes a kitchen like a row of cookbooks arrayed on a shelf or in a hutch. Keep a chair or a stool nearby so you have a place to sit and peruse. (Cooks often build a pyramid of books near a bed or a sofa because those are the most comfortable reading spots.) Jane Kramer, a European correspondent for The New Yorker, keeps cookbooks by her desk. “If I want to take a break or distract or reward myself, I grab one and try to figure out what to make for dinner,” she says. But the ones she loves most have a shelf in the kitchen.

Avoid placing books on open shelves where they’re exposed to humidity and grease, namely “over or next to the stove or over the refrigerator,” advises Bonnie Slotnick of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, in New York City. She also urges using bookends to keep books from slumping and bindings from breaking.

If your kitchen is tight on space and short on free shelves, consider adding a steel shelf with hooks that dangle below so it can do double duty as a pot rack.