Spaces: Bookworm

Linda McCartney - Life in Photographs / Eric Gill - An Essay on Typography / Mark Forsyth - The Etymologicon 

So, I've been pretty awol recently, for a number of very personal reasons, but in some good news, my roommates are both moving out, so I've had a little more space and time to organise my little home and take stock of all the lovely things I'm so blessed to have.

Detail from Hotel il Pellicano by Juergen Teller

I was going through some of my favourite books and I realised that they kinda fit into this cool red colour scheme, and I'm all about cute little coincidences like that! One thing I really started to get into over the past year is photo books, and I have started picking up some beautiful coffee table books. 

Hotel Il Pellicano is a gorgeous book, documenting the fabulous guests and surroundings of the famous hotel in Tuscany which gives the book its name. Everytime I need a little mental holiday I flick through this and imagine frolicking in the italian sun! I picked it up when looking through the clearance shelves at the American Book Center, my favourite bookstore in the Hague, with a dear friend, and we also picked up Linda McCartney's Life in Photographs. 

Life in Photographs is full of some beautiful and personal images of life through Linda McCartney's eyes and lens. It captures an exciting and vibrant life full of intimate portraits of some of the best known people in the world. It's a beautiful collection of photographs and I love displaying it on my coffee table.

Also on my little stack, is my beloved copy of Humans of New York which my wonderful mother got for me as a gift. I've been a fan of the HONY Facebook page for a few years and this book is a fabulous extension of his blog. I love to read other people's stories, and the way he can capture them with a photograph and only a few lines is truly astonishing.

I've included a few of my favourite smaller books in here too, Eric Gill's An Essay on Typography is a must for anyone interested in typography and where the typefaces we know and love come from. The Etymologicon is a hilarious and illuminating read for anyone interested in the English language and where words come from, I picked it up at the airport in Glasgow one day and had finished it by the time I'd reached Amsterdam, I can't sing its praises enough! 

The last non fiction book on my stack is Escape from Camp 14 which is not fun to read, and will not leave you feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside. It is instead incredibly gripping, eye opening, and shocking. It deals with life growing up in a prison camp in North Korea and escaping to America. You've been warned, it deals with dreadful subjects but you won't want to put it down.

Last but not least is one of my favourite novels of all time: Brave New World. It's a classic for a reason. I love old school dystopias like this and I actually wrote my final High School dissertation on how far along our society has come to reaching Huxley's dystopian vision of the future. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but if you like literature that makes you think, give it a try!