Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2020 Issue

Books: Maybe We Aren't Reading Them, But They Still Make Great Props

Former Vice-President Joe Biden speaks in front of his bookcase.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden speaks in front of his bookcase.

Books have long held a position of high esteem in our households, likely as far back as Gutenberg. You probably have a bookcase containing every book you have ever owned. Why? Do you keep a collection of the old tires from your cars once they are no longer being used? No, you don't, so why do you keep your old books? You won't read them again, presuming you ever did. The answer is in what books say about us, or what we imagine they say about us, even if not entirely accurate. They imply we are learned, intelligent, seekers and possessors of knowledge. They imply wisdom, or to use a recently more common term, credibility.

 

While our credibility is usually on display only to the few people who visit our homes, most of whom know us too well to be fooled, the bookcase has suddenly become an important prop in the time of the coronavirus. Politicians, newscasters, and celebrities of all sorts, those whose faces we normally see on our TV screens, are no longer seen in public. They now reach us through cameras in their homes. This gives us access to something we have never seen before – the inside of their houses. They speak to us in front of their possessions, those they want us to see. So there they are – the bookcases, filled with books, implying they are readers, people of education and intellectual depth. They help the celebrity create an image, just as clothes and jewelry used to do when they were out and about town.

 

This practice has become so widespread that it has attracted a following. There is a Twitter account named “Bookcase Credibility.” It only took about two weeks to attract 50,000 followers. Their motto is “What you say is not as important as the bookcase behind you.” It is filled with pictures of newsmakers as they appeared on television or computer screens seated in front of their bookcases. Other places on the internet have gathered viewers who try to discern the titles of the books the important person reads (or doesn't read). It is often difficult if not impossible, as they are more distant in the background and titles on the spine are not that large. Nonetheless, they sometimes are able to decipher what is on the bookshelf, though it may be the mere existence of a collection of books that relays the image the person wishes to create.

 

One thing I have not seen is the housebound speaker standing in front of a television set. Does everyone read more than they watch TV? Even the President of the United States is known for watching a lot of cable news while not being too much of a reader. Is he the only politician or other celebrity with that preference? Unlikely, and if not, some people are trying to fool us with their images.

 

Someday, all of this will be over. We won't be pouring over TV stills trying to read the spines of books in the background. We will have real things to do, places to go, people to see. We will again be able to live life, not just imagine it. Until then, stay safe.


Posted On: 2020-06-01 05:27
User Name: artbooks1

I have signed in to say that Ivana Trump revealed that Don kept a copy of Mein Kampf at his bedside shelf


Posted On: 2020-06-01 18:49
User Name: Giordano

Alarming!

"You won't read them again, presuming you ever did" . Read them - or read them again?

Behind me are my bookcases (no photograph!). I've read almost all of the many books on them and today, not for the first time, picked up one at random to read again. The pleasure of reading a book again is remarkable, like treading a well-worn path and discovering new things at every step.

I expect there are people to whom old car tires are equally pleasurable - but the space they'd take!


Rare Book Monthly

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    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
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    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
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    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
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    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
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    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
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    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
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