No Ugly Objects

In Gabrielle Zevin's new novel, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, the character Ismay says about books,  "... a nice jacket is important.  I don't care how good the insides are.  I don't want to spend any length of time with an ugly object."  

The books highlighted here are no ugly objects, inside or out; nor are they lush coffee table books such as the ones easily found in our Art, Architecture, and Interior Design collections.  These books are smaller, easier to hold and peruse, and are from a variety of subject areas.  So if you're looking for a beautiful book to sit with for a while or for one to return to often for brief reads, you might try one from this selection.

All the Time in the World: A Book of Hours by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins.  Loosely modeled after Medieval and Renaissance books of hours containing prayers and devotional verses, this book is filled with "historical anecdotes to demonstrate the unusual, fantastic, and beautiful ways people have spent time across centuries and continents."  With generous margins, ornamental page designs and illustrations, but no contents or index pages, this book is an interesting browse but not a ready source for information or answers.

The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany and The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany, both by Graeme Gibson, have gorgeous illustrations on nearly every page to accompany selections about birds and beasts from fiction, myth, poetry, travel and nature writing, and other literature.  Both of these books are beautifully designed by CS Richardson to find within a few turns from any page a selection's beginning or end. 

World Tour: Vintage Hotel Labels from the Collection of Gaston-Louis Vuitton by Francisca Matteoli.  Gaston-Louis Vuitton was the grandson of the French fashion house founder and trunk-maker, Louis Vuitton.  Gaston-Louis Vuitton began working in the family business at fourteen and became a great collector of the hotel labels that were placed on guests' trunks beginning in the 1860s and that were among some of the best graphic design of the times.  This book features more than 900 of the approximately 3000 labels from his collection.  Mixed in with the labels are vintage photos and facsimile postcards of tourist sites and hotels.  Commentary on travelers and destinations from the 1920s to the 1950s and a history of hotel labels are included.  

Sciencia: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Astronomy for All  edited by John Martineau.  This small squat book with iridescent lettering on the cover actually contains six popular science books, each having its own color for text and illustrations.  Concepts are handled in two pages, a page of text facing a page of illustration.  The design is very suitable to browsing, but the index and charts and tables of the appendix make it a useful reference book, too.  The six books included cover mathematical proofs and formulas, scientific elements, evolution, the human body, and astronomy.

Masterpieces of British Design by Charlotte & Peter Fiell; Foreward by Sir Terence Conran.  This book covers 300 years of British design masterpieces including textiles, ceramics, tools, toys, technology, transportation, furniture, and more. The bright clean design of this book includes facing pages with text about the designer and small photographs of work on one side and a full-page picture of the designer's masterpiece on the other side.