OLD BOOKS

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?