Book covers
Although a book’s cover may not be able to ultimately sway my final judgment of its contents, a nice cover (and my tastes are varied) will pique my interest enough to pick it up and leaf through it, to discern whether or not I’m up for the commitment.
The Book Cover Archive recognizes the need to appreciate this artform and have began posting covers of all sorts. I hope the appreciation continues and flourishes as we enter an age where more and more books are becoming digitalized, and where the experience of holding a physical book while reading, something that you can smell and not only touch but feel becomes less cherished by many. How anyone could choose to read a book on a Kindle or computer screen is beyond me, but that’s another story.
Here’s a small collection of covers I fancy.
Fabulous bookstore
Shakespeare and Company is an independent bookstore located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris’s Left Bank. It serves as a bookstore and also a lending library, specializing in English-language literature.
The upstairs also serves as a makeshift dormitory for travelers, known as “tumbleweeds,” who earn their keep by working in the shop for a couple of hours each day.
This is also the bookstore in the opening of Before Sunset.
It actually reminds me of a bookstore in San Francisco (whose name escapes me at the moment) between North Beach and Chinatown. I easily spend hours getting lost in the sea of books at these type of bookstores. They don’t have that same sort of antiseptic feel of, say, B&N or Borders—they’re cramped, dirty and chaotic. Pretty spectacular, don’t you think?
Indulging my five senses
Mini, bite-sized vanilla cupcakes.
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being (beautiful)
Lillian Ross - Portrait of Hemingway
Nancy Milford - Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay - Fatal Interview: Sonnets
A fine, purple, wool dress.
Beach House on vinyl. It’s a sickness, I know.
Chloé by Chloé. Has a sweet, lychee-esque smell to it.
