BiblioQueria 14

Today as I was finishing up my Christmas shopping, I came across this enchanting card at the fabulous card store Write Impressions in yes, the Bloor West Village. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was meant for me. So now I'm just waiting for the card to be specially framed at my favourite frame shop in the Village. The image that I have scanned (which is not as clear as the original) comes from a tiny duplicate found at the back of the card, which I had trimmed off for framing.

This whole experience got me thinking about the fact that I actually have quite a few framed images in my home that are related to the theme of books and reading. I won't go into detail describing each image (I'll save that for another post!), but suffice to say that quite a few of my pictures are rather, um ...bookish. I can't wait to arrange all these bookish photos in my new library next year. Who knew that just the mere thought of arranging pictures could be so delightful?

And so my question to you is ...

Do you have any bookish images on display in your own home?

Comments

[Cipriano]

As you know, I have lots of Starbucks stuff on my walls, some of which has to do with bookish themes.
But the one (non-Starbuckian one) that I think of most readily, is in, (of all places) my bathroom. Why is it in my bathroom?
Because it was the only wall space I really had left in my place, when I happened upon this picture.
I walked in to an independent bookstore just as the owners were sadly dismantling the place. Forced out of operation by the very mega-bookstore I am sitting in tonight, typing this. [Don't throw things at me...]
Anyhoo... this guy was up on a ladder taking the thing down and I said "Pardon me. What will you be doing with that picture?"
"It's going in the garbage," he said.
It's been in my bathroom ever since.
It is gorgeous. It is a painting of these two girls in a field of flowers and it is a promotional picture from Everyman Books.
Underneath the Everyman logo it has that phrase of theirs... "Everyman, I will go with thee."
The full quote goes on to say, "and be thy guide, In thy most need to go by thy side."
The one you've shown today will make a great framed picture!

[Moni]

I don't have any bookish pictures, but leaning on my books in my shelves, I have a ceramic tile that replicates the University of Salamanca's (in Spain) warning at the entrance to its library.
Roughly translated from the old Spanish it's written on, it states: "His Holiness [the Pope] reserves the right to excommunicate any person who should remove, displace or in any way, shape or form sell any book, parchment or paper from this library, with no pardon obtained until the item has been returned"
Fair warning also applicable to my library.

[Cleo]

I have a set of 8 Mary Engelbreit cards framed and hanging on my office wall as well as several photos of my children reading as small children. Your card is beautiful-how wonderful to just hang out and read side-by-side with a beloved would be!

[Anne]

I don't have bookish artwork in the sense that you describe, but I am extremely proud of three lovely small oil paintings by the poet e.e. cummings that I bought at an estate sale run by one of his nieces about 25+ years ago. Each painting came with a small seal of authenticity; one is actually signed by cummings on the back. He was quite a prolific artist (painter). One of the paintings is of a nude young woman, from the waist up, wearing a wide-brimmed hat; one in clear primary colors, almost translucent, is of a glass vase of summer flowers against a pale-blue background; and the third is a dark, dreamlike horizontal landscape with a ghostly white figure (apparently female) wandering down a slope near a tree. (At the time, they cost me a total of $95, plus framing. Bargain.)

[iliana]

I want that card! I have several postcards taped on my walls and doors which have images of people reading, bookshelves, book quotes, that sort of thing. You've given me a great idea about framing them though.

[JoanneMarie]

The painting over my bed as a girl was of a girl reading. Now that my mother is moving and I've taken my old bedroom set, I'm going to look and see if that painting is somewhere in my closet. I haven't thought about it in years.

[BrianFies]

When my editor sent me pre-cut proofs of my book--which come off the press in poster-sized sheets, each printed front and back with 16 pages--I framed my favorite and hung it in my office.

Now I'm just bragging. But it is pretty cool.

[R J Keefe]

Long ago, I was the lucky recipient of a signed poster that cartoonist Ed Koren did for Jeannette Watson, advertising what was then New York's most exalted bookshop, Books & Co. There are a few books in the drawing, but mostly there are fuzzy Korenesque humanoids - come to think of it, no women.

In storage, I have a beautiful Penguin Classics poster, "The Library of the World," printed handsomely beneath Holbein's Erasmus.