Was very excited about this book even before I saw it up close and personal. Now that I own it, my enthusiasm for it is not a bit diminished. This is not a design book in the conventional sense. Bibliophiles are accustomed to interior designers who purge your collection from view in order to achieve their design. Where knickknacks displace your grandfather's Dickens collection. But Geddes-Brown reveals a love for the book in her introduction that set me immediately at ease.
"So while many authors treat books with disdain (and disapprove of books furnishing a room), the jumble of volumes by a writer's desk, the way books are used to prop up uneven desk legs or signal dangerous holes in a carpet, are far better than treating them with a conservator's cotton gloves. Books are there to be read - and to furnish a room."
The author asserts that books belong in every room of a house. The manner in which you choose to organize them may reveal as much of your nature as the titles themselves. Look, for instance, at the photo above to see how a minimalist might display their books. They may reside in plain view as you see on the top deck (that is unless the well-hidden blinds are pulled down) or rest behind doors as you see below. Whatever your style, you will probably find it depicted in at least one of the gorgeous photos in this book. The prevailing theme is that the books are the furniture, the anchors, the means by which we personalize our spaces whether you collect rare incunabula or paperback bodice rippers.
The assumption is that the book is a focal point of your decor. Even it's image creeps into spaces that do not hold actual books as seen in this photo of some tempting wallpaper - "Bibliotheque" by Brunschwig et Fils. So if books in the bathroom seems a reasonable idea...
Or the stairwell in your home calls out for books ...
Or you can think of no finer way to welcome people into your home ...
Well then, you may want this book. A lot. Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown is written and delivered with the most engaging images just for bibliophiles. The gentle madness. The need to make room for our papery friends. Justified within the pages here in a no-excuses, indulgent voice that already seems to understand your bookish needs. A design friend not foe.
