Judging A Book By Its Cover

In theory I know that this is bad, but I do it all the time. If a book has a pretty or interesting cover I'm going to pick it up and look it over. If it's especially pretty, I just might bring it home regardless of the story. Occasionally I'll get lucky and find a set of books that are just gorgeous.

One set that I've been working on collecting is the Clothbound Classics set by Penguin. They're simple and beautiful, and I think they make a statement grouped together. I have to admit, I stalk Amazon to see when there are more books being released in the set. I think I have two or three pre-ordered as I type this.

I actually have them all over the house. Most of them, as pictured below, are in our main living room mixed in with the Big guy's collection of decanters and some other fun mementos from trips we've taken.

 

I also keep some on our mantle. I rotate these depending on the time of year. Right now, it's all the blue ones since I'm going for a wintry feel. I've done black/gray/scary books at Halloween, brown/beige at Thanksgiving, and usually keep ones with magenta accents up all year round.

I also have a few sets that I keep in our guest room. The first is the series of 5 Virginia Woolf books that I love for the dust covers. Normally I don't keep dust covers, but I made an exception for these.

 

There's another set that I've picked up for the dust cover designs, and those are the F. Scott Fitzgerald books. I love the art-deco flair on these designs. Not surprising, they heavily influenced the vibe I have overall on our guest room.

 

What about you? Are there any books that you've picked up, or maybe even hunted down, because of their design or because they were part of a series?

Spooky Books

One of the things I love about decorating for Halloween is getting our mantle all gussied up. Halloween is the first in a series of holidays that I decorate for over the next few months. I tend to keep things pretty simple with lots of black and a little sparkle.

We usually have some books on our mantle, but I find that those titles aren't quite the right fit for the spooky season. So I went back to the bookshelf and pulled some of the darker titles to add them to the mix. They're darker in story line, and some are very appropriate to the season like Dracula, but they're also darker in color which definitely works with the rest of the items up there.

 

 

 

 

Do you find yourself making any book-related changes to match your holiday décor?