The e-reader – choose your poison:
Kindle Fire or Nook or iPad has been stealing the spotlight of late. There are many arguments in their favor: Portability earns them many points. But there’s something aesthetically pleasing about books-the rhythm of their spines playing along the shelf, arranged by color or size or by Dewey decimal.
An exhibit at the French Institute/Aliance Francais, La Bibliothèque, on view til Feb. 11, creates the illusion of a library, with walls papered with graphite rubbings of books on shelves. The artist, Eric Fonteneau, visited libraries across Europe and North America to create the rubbings-a technique typically used to reproduce the carvings on decaying gravestones-and perhaps comment on the vanishing era of the printed word.
Eric Fonteneau: La Bibliothèque
Eric Fonteneau: La Bibliothèque
Perhaps prescient in its appreciation of the book, A Book of Books (Bullfinch, 2006) is a collection of photographs by Abelardo Morell that celebrates the book in myriad states—from the sculptural contortions of a water-damaged tome to overhead shots of the maze-like stacks of a library. Too, a spotlight on Andre Kertesz gem ‘On Reading’ which captures treasured quiet moments.
An Appreciation for Books
For an ironically digital ode to books and reading, we get off on bookshelfporn.com, a tumblr site dedicated to images-interspersed with musings and factoids-of books on display. Those obsessed with organization and storage will also appreciate this site for the many creative and clever ideas for living with printed matter.
Lastly, at the New York International Gift Fair, at the Javits center January 28-February 2, we spotted an innovative idea to give old books new life as decorative objects. “Say It With Book Covers” offers kits of five paper book covers (in tasteful creamy white, butcher-paper brown and, soon, gray) with the lines of a quote printed along the spines of three, with two
left blank as a sort of border. The quotes range from pithy and funny to romantic, and kits sell for about $20.
Say It with Book Covers
