You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘books’ category.
Libraries have been around a long time and are quite simple in concept: books are stored there, people can come and look at them, and some books may be borrowed, for a while.
Biblioteca di Belle Art Milano.
Bliblioteca do Palacio Nacional da ajuda Lisboa
Peabody Library Baltimore
Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. All of the above from Curious Expeditions. Many of the photos by Candida Hofer.
The simple idea resulted in some grand buildings, palaces to books and mansions for reading. That’s when books were as precious as jewels. That’s no longer the case, but we still build grand buildings for books.
Above is the new library in Alexandria Egypt by Norwegian Architects Snohetta. But if a city today, even a large one, wants a library, it generally ends up being a kind of community centre that happens to have books, rather than a haven for readers.
If you want a quiet, beautiful reading experience, and you don’t live near one of the grand libraries above, maybe you have a nice spot at home with a good chair and books nearby.
This above I found at a site called househunt, and they found it at sweethomestyle. Photo from here. But you don’t need a wall of books, necessarily.
Here is a great reading place with just a good chair and a small pile of books and some natural light. From here. This space is in a small apartment complex in Tokyo by designer Hiroshi Nakamura.
Does it matter where you read? I think it does. But it doesn’t have to be a grand place, just the right place. This from Andre Kertesz, his series On Reading. See more here.
For my money, book covers are the site of some of the best graphic design and illustration that you can find today. Here is a shelfful of nifty ones. Go ahead, judge the book.
Pnin, designer Carin Goldberg
Speak Memory, designer Michael Bierut
Loneliness, designer Peter Mendelsund
The Periodic Table, designer Jim Friedman
Columbine, design by Henry Sene Yee
Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime illustration by Jaya Miceli
The General Theory of Love, designer John Gall
The Music of Chance, designer Yorgos Marinoglou
Top 4 from Book Cover Archive. Others from lists of top book covers of the year, eg here. And more here, from smashing magazine.
Then there are the books that seem so complete that nothing else is needed on the cover but the title and the name of the writer. Cited here.
And if you don’t like the cover of a book you have, you can make a simple paper “jacket” of your own from plain paper.
And maybe add the title and author. Hey it’s your book.
