The Book Collector

Su Blackwell

The Writers Game: War of Words

Here's a short piece I've written for the Laurence King website about the making of my The Writers Game trumps.

I’ve always loved card games, especially those involving trumps – as a child I spent hours with friends pitting racing cars’ engine capacities and windjammers’ displacements, and for my 30^th birthday the invitations to my party were in the style of the original Dubreq Top Trumps cards featuring categories such as ‘Turning circle’ (which I humbly decided was ‘on a sixpence’). So I was delighted when Laurence King felt a similar urge to produce a literary trumps card game, but played with writers rather than military tanks or dragster bikes.

You can read the rest of it here.

Marie Kondo can’t have my bookshelves

"The backlash to Marie Kondo’s suggestion that we chuck out books that don’t “bring joy” shows how attached we are to physical books, even in a digital age. I think Kondo is very impressive. I like how she advises us to fold a shirt with love in our hands. Why not? All the same, I’m not going to give it a go because I believed Virginia Woolf when she advised female writers to kill the angel in the house."
The Guardian

Gothic book coffer

A rare 15th century French Gothic coffer, believed to have been used for housing and transporting religious texts, has been acquired by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. Thousands of manuscripts and printed books survive from medieval Europe but just over 100 book coffers are known to be in existence. This book-box forms the centrepiece of a new display at the Bodleian's Weston Library, titled Thinking Inside the Box, which opened on 19 January and continues until 17 February 2019.

Twisted Dancer bookcase

A funny and creative variation of the standard type bookshelf. Quirky and whimsical, this dancer shows a distinctive character which gives it an illusion of being alive and a whole new outstanding identity. Made from first class FSC birch plywood and finished with durable water based paints.
Josip Gotler

The Writers Game: Classic Authors

My latest literary trumps card game is out today. The Writers Game: Classic Authors also has lovely illustrations by Lesley Buckingham. More details at Laurence King who are producing it.

Little disciplinary shuffle on the top trumps theme amongst my pressies: the ‘modern writers game’...@LyndseyStonebri @gwendabird @sarahchurchwell #numbers #whoseyourtoptrump pic.twitter.com/2Nw0id1bLP

— JenniBarclay (@VolcanoJenni) December 27, 2018

Thinking inside the box

Thinking inside the box
A display of boxes, bags, and satchels used for carrying books at different times and places – inspired by the Bodleian Libraries' recent acquisition of a book-coffer from 15th-century medieval Paris.
19 January - 17 February Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, Oxford
Bodleian Libraries

Tardis Little Library

Located at the corner of 94th Street and Columbus Ave. South in Bloomington, MN near the Mall Of America.

Maurice Baring's travel library

A fascinating travelling library once owned by Maurice Baring, an Old Etonian who was a leading man of letters in the first half of the 20th century...

In early January 2019, Bonhams Knightsbridge will host a special public exhibition: Voyages: a journey in Books from Eton College Library. The loan exhibition, which is supported by Martin Randall Travel, leading experts in cultural tours, runs from Monday 7 – Friday 18 January, Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm; Sunday 13th, 11am to 3pm. Bonhams, Montpelier Street, London SW7 1HH. FREE ENTRY.

Bonhams via  Fine Books Magazine

Ex Novo bookcase

The EX-NOVO project was developed in collaboration with Akrat Recycling, a social cooperative whose primary task is to create a working reality linked to re-use. The Novo bookcase, made up of trapezoidal modules, which work on the single inclination of one side, is an answer to the reason why most of the furniture is thrown away, the lack of adaptability and flexibility with respect to the spaces. Each module has different sizes, but the same proportions and the same inclination of the longer side. This derives from the use of furniture surfaces of different sizes and materials from which more or less modules can be made, creating a sort of patchwork of different woods and colors, an aesthetic trait that makes this object always unique, which changes according to of the different combinations.
Jacopo Coen

Book Boards

Groups of vertically stored cutting or serving boards crafted from reclaimed woods. The board’s proportions are informed by the many standard book and paper formats giving them an archetypal and satisfying weight and feel. A small group forms an interesting and useful feature in the kitchen, individuals comfortably add to your collection of other boards or they can even join your cook books on their shelf.
Sebastian Bergne

The Real McCoy

Today is almost the halfway point of Claire Cock-Starkey's blog tour for her latest book, the excellent The Real McCoy which will certainly appeal to readers of Bookshelf - it's 150 of the most interesting eponyms in English (those words named after individuals). As Claire says: "The Real McCoy is the perfect addition to any wordsmith’s bookshelf." You can read more about Claire and her books (the others are also all well worth a read) at www.nonfictioness.com and on the Twitter where she is @nonfictioness.

Urban bookshelf

Iliada Ndoci

Pumpkin library bookshelves

The pumpkin, carved by local children and decorated by library staff, features several Lego people sitting in the comfort of their own mini-library under a tangled string of lights. For Halloween, the Lego people will even be adorned in costumes.
Boston Globe and Truro Library

The Writers Game

I've been working on this concept on and off for the last three years (readers with good memories will remember that I tried to crowdfund it with Unbound) and now The Writers Game is 'published' today by Laurence King. It's essentially literary top trumps, good wholesome fun for all the family in a rather snazzy box. Here's what LK say about it:

Who had the most commercial success in their lifetime, Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie? Whose work has the most adaptations, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Franz Kafka? Who courted the most scandal, Colette or James Joyce? Pit 32 of the world’s greatest modern writers against each other with these beautifully illustrated cards. An ideal gift for the book lover in your life.

Oyster bookcase

Aylin Özdemir

Shelf Life

As some of you know, away from the world of bookshelves, I also write books (frequently on bookish subjects). The latest is out today, Shelf Life, published by The British Library. Here is some bumph about it:

Books; reading, collecting and the physical housing of them has brought the book-lover joy – and stress – for centuries. Fascinated writers have tried to capture the particular relationships we form with our library, and the desperate troubles we will undergo to preserve it. With Alex Johnson as your guide, immerse yourself in this eclectic anthology and hear from an iconic Prime Minister musing over the best way to store your books and an illustrious US President explaining the best works to read outdoors. Enjoy serious speculations on the psychological implications of reading from a 19th century philosopher, and less serious ones concerning the predicament of dispensing with unwanted volumes or the danger of letting children (the ‘enemies of books’) near your collection

Available from all good bookshops (please buy local if at all possible) as well as the usual suspects online.

Books on Prescription for World Mental Health Day

Books on Prescription helps you to understand and manage your health and wellbeing using self-help reading. The books are chosen by health experts and people living with the conditions covered. People can be recommended a title by a health professional, or they can visit their local library and take a book out for free. The scheme is available in 98% of English library authorities.
More at Reading Well here and here

ASCIUTTO bookcase

Wooden bookcase
Silvia Fabris

Sedbergh Book Shelter

Bibliophiles in the community, which claims to have the most books for sale per head of population anywhere in England, have created what is believed to be Cumbria’s first ‘Book Shelter’. The ‘novel’ facility makes use of a redundant bus shelter in the town’s Main Street where locals and visitors have access to four shelves of books. The Book Shelter can be used as a mini library where books can be borrowed and returned or as a book exchange.
The Westmoreland Gazette

 Incidentally, I shall be doing a book signing at the Sedbergh Book Festival this weekend.