Comments on: Books as home decor items

By: AGF

AGF — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a set designer. I totally see the use of this – though often I’d rather just have the shells of the books filled with foam so they aren’t so heavy. Sometimes you just fake the leather thing altogether, but real books are cool if you can afford them!
As for my house I desperately need more space for books – not more books for space!
I have a friend who bought a bunch of old leather bound books at a garage sale for her living room. She then banished all of her husbands reference books to a box so the ‘pretty’ ones could be on display. sigh.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I once helped out on the shooting of a instructional video. (I wrote the script!)

The actress pretending to use the Canon Instructo (or Samsung Learnalot . . . something like that) did her work on a set with book case. It was crammed with forgettable books.

The one I remember was Andropov: Challenge to the West. (Andropov was a challenge for maybe a year and a half.)

The advent of HDTV is going to make the job of set dressers a lot harder. (“Hey, why does my video diet coach have a shelf full of Y2K preparedness manuals?”)

By: Ruth666

Ruth666 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“short on books”

What might THAT be like???

By: metabrilliant

metabrilliant — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think that Jay Gatsby just had an orgasm.

By: Supercontroller

Supercontroller — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

â€œItâ€™s like you can change up. You can say you somebody new. You can give yourself a whole new story. But what came first is who you really are. And what happened before is what really happened. And it donâ€™t matter that some fool say he different, â€˜cause the only thing that make you different is what you really do or what you really go through. Like, you know, all them books in his library. Now, he frontinâ€™ with all them books. But if you pull one down off the shelf, ainâ€™t none of the pages ever been opened. He got all them books, and he ainâ€™t read nary a one of them. Gatsby was who he was and he did what he did. And because he wasnâ€™t ready to get real with the story, that shit caught up to him.â€ â€“ Deangelo Barksdale discussing The Great Gatsby in episode 6, season 2 of the Wire. Teleplay by David Simon

By: briansawyer

briansawyer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reminds me of my favorite passage from The Great Gatsby. Now we can all decorate our houses with "bona-fide pieces of printed matter," without going through the trouble of choosing the books or, heaven forbid, actually reading the darned things!

By: buddy66

buddy66 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As an ex- bookstore owner, let me say that I don’t care what people do with booksâ€”just don’t give them to me!

Gatsby went to Oxford.

By: Toby

Toby — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a not just a fashion statement, it’s that chance we’ve all been waiting for to teach ourselves Danish (well, all of us other than the Danes, that is).

By: Gary61

Gary61 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

my personal library had (last time I counted) over 1,250 books, 9+ bookshelves overflowing …..
oldest? “Tales of Space and Time”, by H.G. Wells, Harvard University Press, 1896, 1st edition.

My books are not ‘decoration’. I don’t give a damn if anyone EVER sees them (but me and my family and friends). And if I ever visit someone’s house to find ‘decor’ of books that I damned well know they’ve never read ….
I hope they’ll let me have my books in my prison cell.

By: stratosfyr

stratosfyr — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’d rather they just made leather dustcovers for my manga and Star Trek novels.

OK, part of that is a lie: I sold most of my Star Trek novels. Amend to “ugly college textbooks.”

By: electrasteph

electrasteph — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One of my very favorite quotes from Auntie Mame – Gloria Upson looks over Auntie Mame’s gorgeous library, turns to Mame and says “Don’t you just think books are so decorative?”

And Mame looks at her like she’d like to strangle her. Classic.

By: fnc

fnc — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s like penis, or I guess brain in this case, compensation for pseudo-intellectuals?

By: Antinous

Antinous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I prefer to buy a leather-bound, acid-free edition of whatever book I want, new or old. I could buy something that will last for several centuries or something that will end up in a landfill in a few years. Plus – ribbon markers! Of course, buying books that are unreadable is silly, but once again: rich person’s wall or landfill?

By: Smoakes

Smoakes — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have a cousin who occasionally gives me a stack of old books for xmas, because, she says, I ‘collect books.’ If I politely tell her I look forward to reading them, she gets annoyed and explains that the point is that they might be valuable someday, and they look cool and old.
Reading these comments makes me feel I’ve found my people.

By: jenjen

jenjen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bahaha haaaa I wrote an April fools’ message on a librarian listserv in 1995 pretending to look for something like this for my then employer, to be used for a TV interview set for the CEO. Of course, because it was for looks and not books, money was no object. I should ask to be cut in for a piece of the action. Or at least get some pretty books.

By: Takuan

Takuan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

there is such a thing as re-binding. Rip the heart from your favourite and re-skin it in the supple calf-skin of Danish schlock. Plus you get to go all F451 on the leftovers.

By: briansawyer

briansawyer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t believe two Gatsby references popped up in the time it took me to write mine.

By: Rick.

Rick. — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Even douchebags need to look like they read books.

By: Takuan

Takuan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

what crime would warrant stoning to death by hardcovers?

By: Takuan

Takuan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

every true library contains the Good Book
http://www.gearcrave.com/content/images/goodbook.jpg

By: ROSSINDETROIT

ROSSINDETROIT — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A Goth club I used to frequent had only candles for illumination and heaps of books everywhere. For months I thought they were only for atmosphere until one night my date fell asleep and I picked one up. A biography of Genghis Khan. I looked at more of the books. Art, music, fiction, biography, etc. Every book was carefully chosen for that club. I finished reading that book at dawn when they closed for the day & kicked me out. I read many more of their books over the next few months, and when the club closed for good I gave them $5 for that Genghis Khan paperback, which I still have. It’s usually disappointing but now I always look at the decorative books in the hope of turning up something interesting.

By: anthropomorphictoast

anthropomorphictoast — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Our books are so beautiful on the outside that their interior ceases to be important.”

Translation: Pretty to look at, but hollow and vapid on the inside.

Yeah, I can see this being useful for theatrical purposes and hiding secret passageways, but I can really see some rich so-and-so buying these to have the facade of real learnedness.

By: Doombuggyman

Doombuggyman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think services like this one are great for designing set pieces or scenes where the viewer isn’t intended to look at the books (i.e. the Libraries at the Tower of Terror or the Haunted Mansion at Disney’s theme parks).

For the average homeowner, it’s perfect, too. If I go to someone’s home and their library is full of these books, it tells me everything I need to know about them as a person (like just about everyone else here, I’m a bibliophile).

By: Ralph Giles

Ralph Giles — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Antinous: Ideally yes. I was curious about sources for new leather bound books, since you mentioned preferring them in #57.

By: Drowse

Drowse — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I worked for Half Price books, and yeah this is VERY common. I’m not surprised at all.

By: Bibliovore

Bibliovore — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I can only shake my head in sadness and agree with so many people who’ve already voiced my opinion for me. I only hope I never meet someone who owns such a library. I’d hate to have to explain to the courts why I committed murder.

By: indiie

indiie — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#58- I too have found my people! I’m in the process of moving, which involves packing dozens and dozens of boxes of books that I’ve collected all my life, read and re-read every one. My new house has an extra room which is to be my dream library. My friends shake their heads and ask “why”? But they are my children! I can’t part with a single volume, not even the cheapest paperback.

By: mellowknees

mellowknees — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#61 posted by Rick. , May 28, 2008 11:44 AM
Even douchebags need to look like they read books.

________________________

dude, you owe me a new keyboard for that…this one is now covered in spit out coffee.

thanks for making my morning full of laughter.

By: jonathan_v

jonathan_v — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think this is great!

Let’s be honest – tons of books get thrown away. Just a year ago, a Kansas City bookstore owner started to actually burn them – because he couldnt sell or gift them, and it would cost too much to truck away.

In steps some company that is turning books into decoration… so what? In 20-50 years, those books might be the last existing ones of their printings. At least they’re being preserved for a while.

By: Antinous

Antinous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t say that.