Do you decorate with old books? This decor element is a classic! Recently, it has become quite popular, especially on the blogs.
Ripped off covers, leather bound, all one color, matching sets, singular authors or topics... so many options!
I am drawn to books like a moth to a flame, my reading list looks more like a scroll! Books litter my study, and nightstand (as do magazines). Last evening I went to Borders and picked up 6 more books on sale. I often read with a highlighter in one hand and a notebook in another! I write in my books... thoughts, notes, ideas, references and sometimes draw diagrams.
Only just recently am I getting interested in old leather books. Not so much for reading as for decorating. I have always loved to use books as risers. It is one of my favorite decorating tricks. But now I am thinking of using old leather books to fill my book shelves in the family room.
So, let the hunt begin!
These little books came from a library sale. I like their size. I really did not pay much attention to the content... until I got home.
One is a book of biographies. A very interesting mix: Churchill, Edison, Dolly Madison, Benvenuto Cellini and Florence Nightingale. Isn't that a fascinating combination? Now I want to read that too!
The second little book, with it's white penned library reference scrolled across the front, is Captain Singleton written by Daniel Defoe in 1720. You may recognize Defoe's name as he wrote Robinson Crusoe the year before. Again, I am fascinated by this cast-off book.
Who owned these books, who read them? What spaces did they occupy in their previous homes and in the heart's of their previous owners? Mostly I find the trail, from a once new book long years ago to an almost worthless book being plucked out of a library sale bin for 50 cents in Bar Harbor and brought to StoneGable, a wonderful mystery! Worthy of a fanciful literary work itself!
I suspect, at some point, I'll read these books. But that will mean taking apart the vignette they are being used in to decorate my bookshelves.
Are you enamored with books to read or decorate.. or both?
Look beautiful Yvonne, I love old books! and this look amazing, gloria
ReplyDeleteI love old books and have many, some of which I use for risers. I love the smell and feel of old books with their much turned pages.
ReplyDeletegreat display.. I love old books and always keep an eye out for them. Love the bunny you added too.
ReplyDeleteI have many, many books and use them all over the house as decor. There's is just something cozy about books... they evoke the desire to curl up with one, they also make their owners look studious and refined(rather they really are or not)
ReplyDeleteI love that little iron squirrel that you have perched on your new books... I keep a black crow figurine perched on top of a leather collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe!
Books make me happy--old or new! Love to read them, love to have them in every room in my house! I too am drawn to books like a moth to a flame! Great vignette Yvonne!
ReplyDeleteWhen we first moved into our home I designed the Library before I did anything else...even the bedrooms. No beds but BOOKS! LOL!
ReplyDeleteLovely vignettes...
I'm guilty of purchasing many books over over the years for their decorative value.
ReplyDeleteLove that cute little plant - what is it?
Hello Yvonne,
ReplyDeletethat is a pretty vgnette. I love old books, they are truly pretty.
Best greetings, Johanna
Glad to meet a fellow bookworm who also writes in her books and mags and also reads them with a notebook to take notes of new shops and restaurants to visit etc!
ReplyDeleteVeronica
www.tasselsandtwigs.blogspot.com
LOL as we are packing up our thousands of books today (my husband is a bibliomaniac--and a seminarian and a historian, etc, so there are so many) to clear the way for new carpeting. And you are right--the old books look better on bookshelves than today's paper backs and flashy covers. I love old books -- to read them, hold them, decorate them, and as you, wonder about their past. My great aunt (I have some of hers) had her friends sign her books when she loaned them for a read ...some even wrote their thoughts about the book.
ReplyDeleteBoth. I love new and old. I am constantly on the hunt for fabulous old leather books or for volumns. I love to decorate with them too. I've even bought books just for the color of the covers and then found them fascinating to read. Great post. Hugs, Marty
ReplyDeleteI love books and love to read. I don't have any OLD books, YET! I have thought to get some to decorate with too! That is neat that the ones you got are so interesting and you want to read them too! I am reading The Book Theif right now, it is wonderful. XO, Pinky
ReplyDeleteI love having books around me. I have some charm and beauty guides from the 1950's that are so pretty - much too pretty to hide them away!
ReplyDeleteI eat and drink books up! I have stacks of them around me and have been known to have two going at once. I like them to decorate with, too, but I don't have the heart to rip covers off. Now...if I were able to have a few on my coffee table without the kids using them as coasters!! ;-D
ReplyDeleteXO,
Jane
I love to read. I also decorate with books. In July along with my flags, on the mantle in the livingroom is a book about our Canadian flag. At christmas time, I keep a big basket in the livingroom of lots of different Christmas books. Some are childrens books, and some adults. We also have quite a library in our family room.
ReplyDeleteI've also used books for years as risers, Yvonne. It is only in recent years that I've taken the covers off and in some cases covered them with scrapbook paper {mostly books I would have donated and use now for decorative purposes only}. I love the way they fill a spot that seems to be missing "something", and of course, I love to read. Most of the books I use I've already read, sometimes more than once!
ReplyDeleteI am enamored with books, both for decorating and reading. I'd love to have some old leather bound ones for decorating and new ones for reading. Sadly, I think the Kindel and other readers will replace a lot of new books. I use them for risers too.
ReplyDeletepeopel tell me I have way too many but I keep on buying lol & yes I read them all, well try to lol & decorate with them, the office is filled with spiritual, insperational, refence books, the living room is filled with old classics etc, the bedroom is filled with magazines & we wont count the craft, sewing, decorating etc in the sewing room LOL now I ask you , does that sound like too amny LOL LOL
ReplyDeleteHelen
Old books were the very first thing I began to collect just out of high school.....they have never lost their intrigue or place of honor in my home. I have them everywhere. My favorite grouping is a collection of "red" books in all various subject matter. Then there is a collection of books with an ocean theme that I use in summer decorating, I've a couple stack of books with covers torn off and bound together and then another set of books bound by an old leather belt. The more the better and to me they add so much interest and "life" to a home.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer, I love books and have shelves filled, but only recently have I become enamored of old books and now they grace my office as risers, while I decide what use to put them to next.
ReplyDeleteYvonne,
ReplyDeleteI love reading...books, magazines, newspapers. During my years as the "town" librarian, I read (scanned) all new books purchased for the library. Two funny stories... A youth working part~time told her Mom. "Isn't it sad, Mrs. Pat can only read Children's books. That's all she ever checks out." At the time, I was working in a Pre~school and checked out 25 books a week. I read 5 books a day to my students!!! The second was from the Baptist Minister in town condemming some of the books in the library. Oddly, as he left that day he told me his favorite book was "Swiss Family Robinson". Really? I replied. His come back was, "Yes! What's yours"? My reply, with the sweetest smile I could muster...."The Bible".
Fondly,
Pat
We love to decorate with antique or old books. They are great to add interest, color and height when needed.
ReplyDeleteAngela and Renee
Both....I can remember as a child reading everything I had one summer, so I went into the attic and brought down some old books...lots of them from the early 1900s - 1960s lots of fun - they were fragile! I still have some in my bookcase now - and yes, I love to use them as "pillars" for height!! Great post!
ReplyDeleteI've been an avid old book collector for my entire life. I lost my entire collection during a home sale...they disappeared during the move. But, soldiering on, we replenished as we travelled all around. Now, they give me a whole lot of comfort and inspire memories. xx's
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love old books, and I love to place them strategically around my house. I do have a few that have to be put up do to their delicate nature, but I love to look at them. One of my favorites is an old copy of the white house cookbook with notes made from the previous owners.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was pregnant with our second child, we were in an antique store, browsing old books. I found an old name, handwritten, in one of them and was inspired by the look of it to use it as my daughter's middle name! Sadly, I did not purchase the book, nor do I remember the title...
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