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Book Covers and Their Paperweight Doppelgängers: An Online Art Installation

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Michelle Anne Schingler, a former librarian and Hebrew school teacher, is the managing editor at Foreword Reviews. Her days are books, books, books; she knows how lucky that makes her.  Twitter: @mschingler

Because everything written is digital now, functionally, paperweights have gone the way of the *insert your beautiful species that our rampant overconsumption rendered extinct here.*

I don’t care. I think paperweights cool. They’re vintage and fun and they’re great for self-defense.

My collection is vast and odd. I obtained most pieces for a paltry $1.50–$2.99, depending on whether their stickers bore half-off-colors that day at Goodwill or not. In other words: they were practically free.

Because they have no function, though—other than being glorious glass or acrylic balls of wonder—I’ve taken to either spreading them across my desk at work or pairing them at home with books that they resemble, with the result that my paperweights have found a second functional life: they’re ART, dahling.

There’s also a second bookish aspect at work here: did you know that (according to the all-knowing wiki) Colette, Oscar Wilde, and Truman Capote were also paperweight collectors? No? Well: they were. So: RELEVANT.

Without any further rationalization!: welcome to opening night of the Paperweights and Books show at the Book Riot Gallery. We hope you brought your own wine and cheese, because the only feasts we’re serving are visual, y’all. There are links for the books if you’re interested, but nothing on the paperweight side is for sale and no, I do not want to share. Get your own.

Then take pictures.

We like bookish pictures.

The French Laundry Cookbook

Pale Blue Dot

Good Morning, Midnight

Gold Fame Citrus

Breathless

Votes for Women

Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze

At Last

Go Set a Watchmen

Sex Object

The Lazy Weekend Cookbook

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

The Art of Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Steampunk

Clade

The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden

Curiosities and Splendour

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Wagashi: The Art of Japanese Confectionary

Season: A Year of Wine Country Food

Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children’s History of Art

Animalium

Djinn City

Race to the Bottom of the Sea

Cabañuelas

 

Do you have any bookish habits or curiosities that fascinate you like this? Tell us about ’em!