Customer Reviews

Decorating with Books (House Beautiful)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For anyone trying to solve the problem of living with books, Ms. Hueston provides no help. She arranges books by size and color, for what she perceives as visual interest. One of her displays even uses trompe de l'oeil wallpaper to create the illusion of a library! Many of the rooms shown are in architects' houses, "seaside" homes and European castles. Most of the results are cluttered: every surface in every room (including surfaces created by stacks of books) is covered with vases, ceramics, sculptures, candles, flowerpots, fringed shawls and what she calls "cherished possessions." In addition, many of the bookshelves are encumbered with framed prints or hangings that hide the books. Unless you share her flamboyant taste (including an inordinate fondness for the color red) and have a budget to match, look elsewhere.

When you have 6000 books and counting, it is a continuing challenge to find ways of storing, shelving and displaying them without looking like you've taken up residence in a public library.

"Decorating With Books" is not my favourite book on this subject. (I preferred "At Home With Books" by Ellis, Seebohm and Sykes for the sheer volume - no pun intended -- of books shown in the illustrations). Nevertheless, "Decorating With Books" is a very practical choice for many book owners and is chock full of interesting ideas for incorporating your collection into your décor.

Who knew that a stack of books could double as a bedside table as well as bedtime reading, or that leaving piles of books on the tables and on the floor would function as design elements?

Works for me!

This is a specialized guide with lots of useful hints, photos, ideas, and sources for further help, like contractors and desginers, if your goal is to integrate your books into your home decor. On the other hand, if you want to put your books in a rational, logical order, like LC or Dewey, as I do, so I can find them easily, it is not that useful. But the photos are great show a side of book collecting that definitely has a strong appeal to some collectors.

I love this book. My husband and I are avid readers and enjoy collecting books. We have a lot, to put it mildly. This book gave me many ideas for decorating our home to showcase our books. There are tons of pictures so in addition to being useful, it is just enjoyable to leaf through the pages. I would think that anyone with even a small home library would really enjoy this book.

Photo book featuring home libraries and - shock - books stacked throughout homes! Five year olds decorate like this when you tell them to put their books away. No original ideas or actual creativity to be found. There are other books on this subject, search Amazon for them. I suggest "Living with Books" by Alan Powers.

I sent the book back to Amazon. Was disappointed in it. I expected it to be more about books and less about elegant rooms to put them in. A few books put on a chair or on a table or, obviously, in a bookcase really isn't that imaginative. A good magazine showing displays of collectibles including books does a better job as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, it's book-porn. This selection features page after page of full-color photographs featuring various home libraries. I didn't think this was quite as satisfying as "The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World" but a lot of the photographs are really quite fetching. Put together by House Beautiful magazine, the book features a lot of "old money" styled homes, with pretty architectural features and a hint of shabby chic. The most unique idea I found in the book was the idea of turning book jackets inside out... so as to create a uniform, white bookshelf. I could totally picture myself doing that. I'm not such a big fan of leaving piles of books artfully arranged about the house, however. (how will I tell them apart from books I'm reading and have simply set down?) As a librarian, and book lover, I was naturally curious to see what kind of titles were on the shelves... seeing someone's personal book collection can tell you so much about them. Most of the books featured in these photos were home decorator titles, books about art, plenty of biographies and a few non-fiction titles. Aged, leather-bound gilt volumes were heavily in use as well. The kind of books that typically get used by home-stagers and the like. In other words, non-readers who want a lot of books around the house in order to appear smart. This was a very pretty book, but not terribly memorable.

This book has some great pictures and is useful for looking at how other people have decorated with books. Not much substance but certainly some good ideas, placing them in context of space and types of books. I think it could have hit more of the spectrum in doing these illustrations.

I initially had loaned this book from the library before purchase and it has to be one of my favorite decorating books so I headed to amazon to purchase. I have a large book collection and a small 1200 sf house so finding places to put them has been a chore. This book helped me use the nooks and crannies of my house, plus give me some "bookcases" to look for and I love the idea of putting a library in the bedroom & the dining room if necessary. Not to mention this book actually makes a good coffee table book - perfect size and neutral colors.

I loved reading and looking at the pictures in this book! I have a lot of books (and dust-catchers) so needed some ideas on placement. This book shows many different ideas in many different types of settings....living room/dining room/family room/study. It really gave me the courage to try some different things! Also, I saw some books I just MUST have.

D. Jones