BOOKS: MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF

This is a book we love about books other people love. Whether or not any book earns its place in the prime real estate of your bookshelf largely depends on its impact on you. Even those of us who can’t bear to give or throw a book away, have a prime bookshelf space for our most beloved books. My Ideal Bookshelf edited by Thessaly La Force, looks at people’s lives through the lens of their shelves and learns that beauty is often a key factor in their book-love priorities. MOMA’s Paola Antonelli, for example, cherishes books that have a graphic concept, like Hello World, by Alice Rawthsorn. Without something to hold or gaze upon, she says, she’d prefer most books as e-books.

You are what you read, to a large extent. Jane Mount an artist and illustrator began painting portraits of people defined by the spines across their bookshelves. Her paintings illustrate the shelves of the My Ideal Bookshelf contributors. These delicate watercolor paintings show reveal passion, intrigue, and the inner workings of great artists, thinkers, scientists, and other creative leaders, as modeled by the books they hold dear.

As a special treat for the bibliophile in your heart, you can commission Mount to paint your own Ideal Bookshelf as a gorgeous testimony of who you are.