Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Decor for a bibliophile

There is, perhaps, no item available for purchase that defines me more than a book.

An old, yellow-paged, musty smelling book.

And as much as the e-reader intrigues me (you can carry around 3500 books at one time!?), it will never rival the sensory experience I have whenever I hold cover to palm and flip pages through fingers.

J proposed to me with a book (we were canoeing and hiking and biking, and all of a sudden we stumbled upon an overlook. Sitting on the edge of the overlook was a book, faced down, waiting to be picked up. On the page that had the poem "Imitated from Catullus" by Lord Byron, these words were written in black ink: "A___ Will you marry me?")

I have decided that, as a significant part of the wedding decor, we will utilize old books.

I started my hunt today, and for under twenty five dollars, I got all of these:

A Marriage for Love by Ludovic Halevy, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Creatures of Circumstance by W. Somerset Maugham (I am head-over-heels-thrilled about this one), She Married a Doctor by Dorthy Walker, and the Physicians Handbook by, um, the Winthrop Chemical Company

I was quite pleased with my finds. Do you have any suggestions of places where I can find more, inexpensive, but beautiful antique books?

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE this idea! Love. So creative.

    Have you scoped out Central City in Huntington? The antique stores usually have piles and piles of beautiful old books. A few have expensive ones, but I've also seen others you can get for a good price!

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  2. How perfect are these?!?!?! I will keep my eyes peeled for more old books. Central City does have a lot... but so does Goodwill. Sometimes Empire books will sell used Library books for cheap. And yard sales/estate sales too!

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