Bookshelf Light with a Cordless LED Pendant on a Slim Metal Bracket

A small black bracket sits at the end of a bookshelf and hangs a lit lantern out over the edge. It takes about the width of a paperback, and it runs on button cells that come in the box.

No cable. No plug. No socket to find. The light goes on the shelf you actually want lit.

A bookcase is the one thing in the room nobody lights

Think about where the light in a living room actually goes. A ceiling fitting drops it into the middle of the floor and a lamp throws it at the chair you are sitting in. The bookcase on the wall behind you turns into a flat dark rectangle from about four in the afternoon. The furniture that holds the most is the one you see the least of.

This lights a shelf from inside it. The pendant hangs clear of the shelf above, so the glow falls down the spines below and picks up the cloth, the paper and the gold on the titles instead of flattening the whole wall the way a room light does.

No cable, and no socket to work around

Shelf lighting is usually a strip you stick under the shelf with a cable running down the back of the case, or a battery puck that lies flat and lights the shelf above it. The strip means pulling the bookcase out from the wall and giving up a plug. The puck lights a surface nobody was looking at.

This one has no cable anywhere on it. The cells sit inside the pendant and come with it, so there is nothing to route, nothing to hide and nothing to buy first. The arm carries the pendant out past the shelf edge on a short chain, so the light hangs in the open air rather than lying flat against a surface. It can go on a shelf nowhere near a socket, which is most of them.

Which pendant to pick

Nine designs hang off the same bracket, and that choice is the whole of the decision.

Four are characters and they carry a season with them. Ghost is a small round ghost reading a book. Skeleton is the same idea in a black top hat, and Witch Ghost adds a buckled hat and a carved pumpkin held in both hands. Pumpkin is a jack-o'-lantern under a hat of its own, and it is the only design in the set that glows orange rather than warm white.

The other five are lanterns, and they suit a shelf you would rather not date to one month of the year. Square Lantern is the plain one. Hexagon Lantern is the ornate one, six sides with flower shapes pierced through the roof so light escapes upward as well as out. Stepped Lantern wears a tiered pagoda roof over frosted amber panes and gives the softest glow of the nine, while Pyramid Lantern is an open frame with a loose tealight standing on its floor. Twin Lanterns hangs two of the square ones from one arm, which works nicely on a wide shelf where you want the light to spread rather than pool.

Whichever one goes up, the shelf stops being a wall of spines after dark and turns into the warmest thing in the room.

Specifications

Dimensions: Frame 10 x 9.3 in (25.5 x 23.5 cm). Pendant 2 x 2 x 1.6 in (5 x 5 x 4 cm)

Light color: Warm white, and warm orange on the Pumpkin design

Light source: LED, built into the pendant

Brightness: Under 60 lumens, a soft ambient glow rather than a reading light

Power: Button cell batteries, included. Nothing plugs in and nothing charges

Batteries: 3 x LR41 per pendant, supplied

Material: Black finished metal bracket, arm and chain, in a wrought iron style

Bracket: A flat upright plate with a fleur-de-lis finial, a scrolled openwork corner and a straight arm ending in a spearhead

Placement: The upright stands at the end of a shelf with the arm reaching out past the edge, so the pendant hangs in the open rather than against a surface

Designs: Ghost, Witch Ghost, Skeleton, Pumpkin, Square Lantern, Hexagon Lantern, Stepped Lantern, Pyramid Lantern, Twin Lanterns

Twin Lanterns: Two square lanterns on two separate chains from one bracket

Pyramid Lantern: Lit by a loose LED tealight standing on the lantern's floor

Suits: Bookcases, open shelving, a mantel or a desk shelf

Package Includes

1x Bookshelf Light with Bracket, Chain and Pendant

1x Second Pendant on its own Chain, on Twin Lanterns only

3x LR41 Button Cell Batteries per Pendant