What weight are the shelves taking?
It’ll vary, but some will be full of books I imagine - maybe 10kg?
Books are very heavy. Everything depends on the distance between supports, but 10kg could be an underestimate.
VB
I’m planning on 40cm shelves. Reckon that would be ok?
We don’t have that many books now, I dumped most of them years ago.
Might be a bit low, though 40cm is not a long shelf. Density of paper ~ density of wood (which floats, so say 1 kg/litre). A4 book (pretty large) is ~ 0.2m x 0.3m cross-section x 0.4m length, which would be about 24 litres, so 24kg for 40cm of big books. Obviously if books were smaller weight would be less. There’s also the weight of the shelf itself to add in.
VB
I liked this idea for about as long as it took me to realize I would toe punt the spines off each book within a week.
Maybe done with some perspex fronts that can be lifted up. Would also keep unsanitary fluids off the books as well.
perspex, now you are talking.
“Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit
There isn’t any other stair quite like it
I’m not at the bottom, I’m not at the top
So this is the stair where I always pull myself off to oblivion”.
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What a lot of faff. I wonder if nature could provide s material ideally suited to the task, I’ll pop off and have a think, see what comes to mind 
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Insane !!