ragbag: defrocking your books
it took me until pretty late in life to realise that book covers, by and large, are tacky and more or less useless. using them to keep dust from your books is akin to using neon plastic to preserve your furniture.
there are surprises in store for the adventurous defrocker of a hardback book…gold and silver foil stamping! linen! typography! earthtones! what’s more: since the binding of books has been more or less standardised over the last 3.2 million years, the dan brown bestseller that you bought yesterday will harmonise with your grandmother’s edition of fanny hill when they are both naked together on your bookshelf.
added bonus: you can upcycle your discarded covers into fashionable outerwear!
more unsolicited advice on how to arrange your bookshelf can be found here.
I’ve been defrocking my books since I could read. Dust jackets are annoying and unsightly and inevitably covered in rips, wrinkles, and pen marks. Don’t ask me how a book without a dust jacket manages to escape all that… it’s just one of the pleasant mysteries of the universe.
travors: Terry Pratchett.
Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!!! collects artists’ portraits of great writers.
Auto Pratchett reblog.
But learning how to settle down and how to paint with discipline had been hard for him because there had been a time in his life when he had not been disciplined. He had never been truly irresponsible; but he had been undisciplined, selfish, and ruthless. He knew this now, not only because many women had told it to him; but because he had finally discovered it for himself. Then he had resolved that he would be selfish only for his painting, ruthless only for his work, and that he would discipline himself and accept the discipline.
Hemingway, Islands in the Stream
Just started reading this today. My mother makes fun of me for liking “boring books” (as opposed to King or Grisham). I can’t help it if Hemingway is becoming my favorite writer.
Eric Carle has a BLOG?!
It’s true!
(In case you forgot/are a robot with no childhood: Eric Carle = The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
![Walls Notebook is a notebook / sketchbook with 80 “clean” New York City walls as your blank slate. Write, draw, paste, or doodle on these interesting and inspirational backdrops. You’ll be one step closer to being the graffiti artist you’ve always wanted to be … minus the jail time. [walls notebook]
I feel like this is something I would give my child as opposed to a coloring book.](http://17.media.tumblr.com/BcG3Hg8wXjg230zlOnTFS10Oo1_r1_500.jpg)
Walls Notebook is a notebook / sketchbook with 80 “clean” New York City walls as your blank slate. Write, draw, paste, or doodle on these interesting and inspirational backdrops. You’ll be one step closer to being the graffiti artist you’ve always wanted to be … minus the jail time. [walls notebook]
I feel like this is something I would give my child as opposed to a coloring book.
Delocator
robot-heart: It’s a cool little search engine that helps you find coffee, books and movies — literally, that’s all you can search for — in (or pretty close to) your zip code. I wonder who their target audience is.
kaytee: The search results are all noncorporate. I absolutely love this.
I love whoever made this from the bottom of my heart.
I’ve been here! This doesn’t even capture a quarter of the old-book nerd beauty. Mmm, and the smell. Sigh…
![“All we did was cut off the bottom part of the vertical elements underneath the bottom shelf, mount nine steel L brackets per bookcase to the wall (three per fixed Billy shelf) and mount the Billies on to them.”
I need my own place.[Ikea Hacker]](http://1.media.tumblr.com/BcG3Hg8wXi13w5i5SxPtoWPzo1_400.jpg)
“All we did was cut off the bottom part of the vertical elements underneath the bottom shelf, mount nine steel L brackets per bookcase to the wall (three per fixed Billy shelf) and mount the Billies on to them.”
I need my own place.
[Ikea Hacker]
havent-got-a-prayer: “Some of the most comforting words in the universe are “me too.” That moment when you find out that your struggle is also someone else’s struggle, that you’re not alone, and that others have been down the same road.”Rob Bell is wonderful. I read Velvet Elvis and it’s one of the only Christian books I can say I truly agree with. I’ve been planning on reading Sex God for a while.
- Rob Bell, Sex God
Amazing book. Don’t judge it by the title
The Penguin Classics hardcovers I reblogged earlier.
This is the only place they’re available, which is in Europe, natch. I would totally not mind getting one or two or ten of these for Christmas. <3
travors: This week saw the 20th anniversary of the release of the first issue of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman’s now-classic fantasy series that rewrote the rules of mainstream comics more than once in its’ 75-issue run. (via Sandman: 5 Ways That Sandman Changed The World)
I’m reading this series now. It’s my first graphic novel and I love it.
unicornology:tarts:makenosound: The new series of classic Penguin hardbacks are, as one Flickr comment notes, ‘deliriously gorgeous.’ See also The Penguin Blog’s interview with the designer, Coralie Bickford-Smith (via Virginia).
Mmm. Merry Christmas to me?
crazyfor-you: The first man to build me this wins my heart.
Egads. Same for me.
What my bookshelf wants to be when it grows up.
