What does your bookshelf say about you? Five luxury literary edits for your home
They say the eyes are a window to the soul, but in lockdown, the only point of interest is behind you. Specifically, as demonstrated by a picture Sarah Vine took of her husband Michael Gove for her Twitter feed earlier this week, your bookshelf. Within minutes of posting the picture – which, taken in their family home, showed Gove giving a daily briefing on their television – Vine had received thousands of comments.
Not about her husband, but his bookshelf half in shot, on which were arranged several biographies of dictators Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, as well as Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve. Such was the resulting online cocktail of outrage and intrigue, Vine may as well have posted a tell-all transcript from her husband’s juicy personal diary. The controversy also prompted a moment of acute universal anxiety: what do our bookshelves say about us?
Until the pandemic, our bookshelves, like most things in our personal lives, were a tantalisingly private matter. But as the workplace has infiltrated the home, with Zoom calls taking place in every room of the house, there has been an uptick in national nosiness. It is almost impossible to focus on business during video conferences when all you really want to do is study your colleagues’ interiors and catch a glimpse of their partner. Or, more tellingly, assess their ethics, erudition, interests and philosophy with a quick snapshot of their reading habits.
In fact, many public figures are now using their carefully curated bookshelves as an opportunity to peacock, or to convey a particular agenda. Photographs released by Kensington Palace at the end of March were clearly taken to include the Duchess of Cambridge’s Penguin Clothbound Classics. Featuring Homer’s Odyssey, Dickens’s Bleak House and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, the collection perfectly captured the Duchess’s successful trademark of gentle thoughtfulness and quiet intelligence.
Meanwhile Prince Charles parlayed his middle-brow credentials with a copy of Dick Francis’s Shattered via his video address in April, Nicola Sturgeon charmingly capitalised on her Scottish roots and metropolitan outlook with a smattering of Jonathan Franzen and Christopher Brookmyre, and Cate Blanchett remained enigmatic and non-committal with her 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary. Beside Gove, however, the only other notable gaucherie has come from our foreign secretary Dominic Raab, who, ahead of his Zoom to the nation by his office window, had unsubtly placed rather impractical little piles of Niall Ferguson’s Virtual History and Nixon’s biography in front of his blinds.
For some, bookshelf grooming has become a holistic endeavour, with Gwyneth Paltrow even employing a books consultant, the so-called ‘celebrity bibliophile’ Thatcher Wine who has also worked with television producer Shonda Rimes, actress Laura Dern and a smattering of luxe hotels. His philosophy? You are what you read, and, like all good self-improvement regimes, you get out what you put in. So without further ado, here are some personality curated shelf selections to get you off on the right page:
Aesthete
Book seller Thatcher Wine furnished Paltrow's library with over 600 titles chosen specifically for their combined colour palettes and coffee table allure. A beautiful open book can act as a centre-piece ornament in its own right.
The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries by Massimo Listri. £150, Taschen.
David Collins Studio: ABCDCS. £75, Assouline.
Yves Saint Laurent: The Impossible Collection. £820, Assouline.
Murals of Tibet by Thomas Laird. Limited edition signed by the Dalai Lama, £9,500, Taschen
Brilliant Basquiat. XXL, £150, Taschen.
Politico
For leaders and deep thinkers, these memoirs and biographies of some of the world's most formidable men and women provide the ultimate power shelf.
The Second World War by Winston Churchill: The Gathering Storm; Their Finest Hour; The Grand Alliance; The Hinge of Fate; Closing the Ring; Triumph and Tragedy. First edition of six volumes, £2,200, Raptis Rare Books.
A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela. Signed fine edition in 22kt gold, £4,191, Abe Books.
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. Signed first edition and first printing, £1,100, Burnside Rare Books.
The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton. First edition, £250,000, Raptis Rare Books.
The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher. First US signed limited edition, £850, Peter Harrington.
Wit
The righteous one has no sense of humour, said Brecht. He’s right: there’s nothing more charming than a gracious command of sophisticated wit.
The Pickwick Paper by Charles Dickens. First Curtis Guild extra-illustrated edition, £3,237, Raptis Rare Books.
Uncle Dynamite by PG Wodehouse. First edition, £225, Peter Harrington.
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell. First edition, £1,250, Peter Harrington.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. First edition, £275, Rare and Antique Books.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [with] Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. First editions, signed and inscribed, £4,250, John Atkinson Rare Books.
Brainbox
You want to exude literacy, deep intellectual curiosity and a refined global outlook.
Poems 1909-1925 by TS Eliot. First edition with dedication to Ezra Pound. £2,000, Peter Harrington.
Ulysses by James Joyce. First edition and inscribed to Lewis Galentiere, £150,000, Raptis Rare Books.
Plato’s Republic translated by Allan Bloom. First edition with inscription, £1,200. Raptis Rare Books.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri translated by Reverend Henry Francis Cary. Second and best edition, 2,000, Peter Harrington.
Essays and Treatises by David Hume. Four volumes, £3,500, Peter Harrington.
Soulfulness
From English sonnets to Eastern philosophy, the soulful bookshelf projects a mood of sincerity, empathy, free thinking and poise.
Poems by John Donne with Elegies on the Authors Death. First edition, £25,000, Peter Harrington.
Fables by William Blake. First edition with plates engraved by Blake, £1,650, Peter Harrington.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. First British edition, £10,000, Peter Harrington.
The Poetical Works by John Milton. Six volumes, engraved, £1,250, Peter Harrington.
The Analects by Confucius. Limited edition wrapped in Shanghai silk, £300, Limited Editions Club NY.
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