One of the things I've enjoyed about being on Twitter is being
able to see the bookshelves of other booklovers.
It’s the same voyeuristic thrill that I get
from visiting someone’s home and stealing a glance at their shelves (if they
have any - sometimes they don’t, and that’s a horror story in itself). I’ve
recently drooled over the book caves of Javier Marias and Alberto Manguel, the
latter of which formerly occupied a rustic, converted stone structure in the
Loire Valley (
sigh).
I’ve searched in
vain for photos of the library of Jorge Luis Borges, with whom Manguel had an
early acquaintance, although one can find fascinating representations online
of Borges’ famously infinite “Library of Babel”.
For a few years now, when I’m feeling down
or bored, I’ll get online and seek out photos of Neil Gaiman’s magnificent and
well-stocked shelves.
I haven’t read an
awful lot of Gaiman’s stuff, but I sense in him a kindred spirit when it comes
to the written word.
Beyond famous authors, it’s the shelves of ordinary booklovers
that I enjoy seeing.
While some are
rather sparse, with fresh, neat softcovers (and there’s
nothing wrong with softcovers) lined up, with ample room for photos
and tchotchkes, by far my favorites are the big, overcrowded ones, with books
crammed into every available space.
This
is what I have at home, with books behind books, books stacked on top to the
ceiling, books horizontal on top of those vertically shelved, in a manner to
make an archivist or serious collector (as opposed to a bibliophile) cringe.
While I’m biased, this to me is the home of a
true booklover, the kind of person who can rarely return home without a new
find in his or her satchel.
The joys of
a bibliophile are generally twofold: the hunt and the reading, but I’d add a
third category – the sheer visual and tactile enjoyment.
Bookshelves are obviously essential for the
best enjoyment of this pastime.
For those just starting out and with limited budget,
shelving may be cinder block and lumber affairs, and, poised to disparage the latter a few weeks
ago, I remembered my own early days, and the cinder blocks of my own that I had
to lug from place to place whenever I changed address.
Cheap shelving meant more money for books,
even if it meant sore muscles as well.
I
later ditched the bricks and honed my meager carpentry skill by building and
staining my own shelves.
I used to dream
of constructing my shelves in the manner of Thomas Jefferson, who ingeniously
designed his as sort of packing crates, so that lids could be screwed on if
they needed to be transported.
At this
point, most of my shelving is store-bought, and much more aesthetically
pleasing than my own handiwork.
A project I’ve contemplated for some time is posting a
complete, annotated set of photos of my own shelves and their contents, because
I know that there are others out there just like me, who would enjoy seeing
them and who would try to zoom in to assess the titles and editions either out
of curiosity (an essential virtue of the bibliophile) or to add to their own
wishlists.
We’re bibliomaniacs, and
that’s just what we do.
It should come as no surprise that one of the subjects I collect are books about books. Most of these are descriptive; however, I do
have a few with an emphasis on photographing books on the shelf.
A recent acquisition that I’ve been drooling
over is
BiblioStyle by Nina Freudenberger, which is intensely packed with
exquisite photos of books and shelves, along with profiles of collectors, including
the late and lamented bookseller Michael Seidenberg, who ran Brazenhead Books, a “speakeasy”-type bookstore and literary salon, out of his apartment on the Upper
East Side until his recent
death .
In closing, some of my favorite books of biblioporn are:
At Home with Books:
How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis
(Carrol
Southern Books, 1994).
My sentimental favorite.
Everything from Nicholas Barker’s crowded
shelves to Keith Richards’ man cave.
Living with Books
by Alan Powers (Soma, 1999). A nice design guide to different book environments
in the home.
Books Make a Home:
Elegant Ideas for Storing and Displaying Books by Damien Thompson (Ryland
Peters and Small, 2017). Newish book, excellent photographs.
Living with Books: 118 Designs for Homes and Offices by Rita Reif (Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1973) – an
interesting look at New York bibliophilia in the early 70’s. Lots of chrome,
shag, and awkward hairstyles.
BiblioStyle by Nina Freudenberger (Clarkson Potter, 2019) – arguably the best
of the lot, 270 pages of shelves and profiles.
