Thinking is even harder than reading so we’re gratified to hear that Strand Bookstore in NYC has a service by which the image-conscious can purchase “Books By The Foot.”
Our personal favorite is the “Foreign Language Antique Leather” collection. It’s cheaper than the “top shelf” leather books because it’s “the same beautiful antique leather books as above with books mostly in French, Spanish, and German.”
Perfect for the stingy polyglot?
Get ready to repeat the following: “No, I don’t speak French, those were my great-great grandmothers. Or something.”
Some of the collections do seem kinda neat, however. We love books.
Books By The Foot [BuzzFeed]
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Im not shocked this business exist. I had a friend who used to steal the fake old-looking books from the displays in stores (like Dockers or that sort of thing).
Personally, I hit the super-cheap book outlets and buy the fake leather bound classics a couple at a time for a buck or two. Ive got a really nice bookshelf and Ive actually read most of them
I read an article about this service; it sounds like an awesome place to work. I believe a lot of their business is for movie sets and stuff.
Wow. This reminds me of The Great Gatsby, where the library in his mansion was filled with row after row of books. However, none of the books pages had ever been cut. Hence, we knew that he had never actually read any of them.
I always thought it was kind of neat that one could tell if a person was a book phony by that simple test. Alas, perfect bound books put an end to that test…
Until now!
I can’t wait to go into someone’s house and find one of these little beauties on the bookshelf.
It seems like $400 per linear foot is considerably more expensive than actually purchasing an equivalent amount of real, hard-cover books. I guess this is another example of the wonderful phrase, “More money than brains.”
God bless America.
this just seems silly…If I’m not going to read it, I don’t buy it, I certainly wouldn’t buy “classics” just to look smarter. I have no problem with people seeing that I’ve read The Stand, This Perfect Day, Cheaper By the Dozen, and Tom Sawyer. I like a variety of books, and my bookshelves show that.
Half-Price Books has been doing their “Books by the Yard” for years, so I’m not really surprised that someone else has done it as well.
@ColdNorth: I don’t see where it says they are not real books?
I think they assemble a collection of books for you and simply charge by the foot.
I love the Strand. Aside from being a great book store, they’re also great at making people look like they read.
I guarantee you that they’ve sold more stylish totebags for 20-something girls to carry on the subway than actual books.
If you must see the totebags, which aren’t half bad, they’re here: [www.strandbooks.com]
The affordable option:
Leather Looking B
$60.00 per foot
Oversized and medium-sized hardcover books in decorative faux-leather bindings. Some books are gently used and represent a variety of subjects, including encyclopedias and law books.
I could use this: all my tables are wobbly.
@ColdNorth: Dude, they’re real books.
Yes, books are for reading, but I can also see how some people would want some nice looking, color-coordinated books as a decoration.
Frankly, my bookshelf is a hideous mix of color, shape and size. I wish the books I actually read looked nice.
I can relate to this — I have a leather-bound collection of Cliff’s Notes.
The text at the top mentions that it’s great for movie set designers, which makes sense.
I have a whole room of these books. Remember it’s not what you know it’s what people think you know.
“I just love books… they’re so decorative!”
–Gloria Upson
This is only going to result in awkward conversation:
“Oh! I see you read XYZ book! I love that book! What’d you think of the characterization?”
“Umm…errr…”
I love the Strand so very much, but with hardcovers for so cheap (I got “The Corrections” there for $6.95), wouldn’t it be easier to just buy a bunch of books yourself?
Also, timsgm1418: Sometimes it’s just aesthetics. When you have a nice bookcase in the living room, it looks nicer if it’s full and not just a mismatched collection of paperbacks. Or, for those of us who make frequent use of our library cards and paperback swaps, it’s a nice alternative to a bunch of empty shelves.
This is nothing new. Many of the Strand’s clients are movie and television production teams.
“I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. “
I have a collection of Houghton-Mifflin readers. The school district used to have a giveaway of old books and toys over the summer every few years. They are also pretty cheap online.
The workbooks that came with the readers were very colorful and fun to use, and you’d tear out the sheets to turn them in. Nowadays, it seems that kids just get black and white photocopies of worksheets.
I wonder if anybody else remembers the series: Bears, Balloons, Boats, Sunshine, Rainbows, Weavers, Moonbeams, etc… I guess you can tell these books were probably made in the 70′s.
However, none of the books pages had ever been cut. Hence, we knew that he had never actually read any of them.
@ColdNorth: Why would you cut up a book you were reading?
Only 17.50 a yard at 1/2 Price!
[www.halfpricebooks.com]
Why I’m just stunned. Numerous posts and not one yet that said:
“I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. “
Just sad. JUST SAD!
So what does it say if we have about 15 boxes of books in storage an no bookshelves to put them on?
That’s nothin’ – A prop house I’m acquainted with rents money by the inch.
The books on a persons shelf often make a good representation of who that person is.
If you look at my bookcase, you will find lots of art books. Books about concert poster art. almost every Far Side Book ever made. A bunch of health books. And a bunch of good books I have actually read.
What does it say about a person if they have a bunch of books they never even intended to read? They are a phony, or they are lazy, or they are just an asshole.
Truly a case of casting pearls before swine. Go to Project Gutenberg and read the books for free.
The only people who would be impressed by someone having such books would expect a person to have read them. Anyone dumb enough to buy into this couldn’t spell poseur, let alone pronounce it.
Of course, be prepared to be exposed as the poseur you are as soon as someone who actually has read those books tries to have a conversation with you about the material, say for the art books for example.
@freshyill: dude i actually clicked on the link. it’s konsumterror wednesday!
and to think i actually avoid puchasing books (i borrow from teh library) cus i dont have space for them!
The funniest part is that all the foreign-language books are porn.
someone should be selling records or cds by the foot… i’d imagine there’s lots of burgeoning hipsters out there who’d rather pay $600 for an insta-collection of old blues albums or originals featured in nuggets or something similar than spend the years required to amass them the old fashioned way.
unless this is for movie sets, it just goes against the entire point of collecting – which is the hunt. dumb, dumb, dumb… but a brilliant business idea!
Where on the web site does it say you’re not allowed to actually read the books you buy from them?
Goodwill outlets sell books very cheap. That’s correct Goodwill has outlet stores for all the crap that doesn’t sell at the regular stores.
As an example here is book pricing for Goodwill in Indianapolis, IN- other areas/cities pricing may vary:
Books and media:
Hardback Books – 50 cents each
Paperback Books – 25 cents each
Coloring Books, Magazines, Comics, Wall Calendars – 25 cents each
Records – 50 cents each
8-Tracks, Videotapes, CDs – $1 each
DVDs – $2 each
(clothing/other stuff is sold by the pound since this is how they salvage sale bales of clothing, etc)
Just remember to wear gloves, bring drinking water, and plan enough time to plow through large pallet sized tubs of books by throwing books from one to another tub.
My spouse and I managed to profit nicely by picking the right books, cleaning the price tags off them, and flipping the books to a large used bookstore for credit. Easily turn $10 in books into $25 to $40 if you work it right…
@Rectilinear Propagation: During the Victorian era, publishers commonly bound books with the pages uncut, and book buyers had to slit their own pages in order to read them.
My mother-in-law buys decorative books for cheap at yard sales. It’s amazing the kinds of matched leather bound series you can find. Of course, these are MAINE yard sales, which are generally better than the usual kids-clothes-and-old-electronics I see here in Mass.
Actually you can buy “A selection of contemporary fiction” for $30. Even if there’s only 6 books per foot, that’s basically a bargain bin price of at most $5/book. Not too bad.
@Rectilinear Propagation: they used to print several pages on a single sheet of paper, fold it, and then bind them together at the spine. And depending on how many pages were printed per sheet, you’ve got folds on one or more edges besides the spine.
I’d never thought about it before, but apparently books didn’t always come with those additional folds trimmed off.
I guess most publishers print just two pages per sheet now, and if they don’t they certainly must have mechanical trimmers to get the uniform edges on every page. I know that I do occasionally get a new book with two pages incompletely sliced apart.
@Rectilinear Propagation: Used to be, when books were published, the pages would be printed on a large sheet which would then be folded into quarters or eighths and bound with the folds still intact. A little paper knife was an essential accessory for cutting the pages of a new book apart. Hence, someone with a library full of uncut books can’t possibly have read any of them.
For those too insecure or too oafish to slowly build their own library.
One of the simple pleasures of visiting friends is casually seeing which books they have stacked about. Tells me much more of who they are than hours of psychotherapy. And vice-versa, I’m sure. And often a nice springboard to the start of interesting conversations. Stealing someone else’s taste negates that.
Well, that and which meds are in their medicine cabinet. But I digress.
@Trai_Dep: You are soooo not coming over to my place. Creeeeepy!
What I got from all of this is that now I need a Strand en español tote bag.
@BayStateDarren: I read 10,000+ pages a year and if someone asked me “What’d you think of the characterization?” I’d probably still respond with “Uhh..” But then I was always prone to getting in fights with my lit teachers for not tearing apart a good book looking for extra symbolism. Sometime a tree is just a tree.
But while I’ll buy the bag of books for a dollar at the last day of the library book sale. I can’t see buying books by the foot if I don’t get to pick the books.
Oh, thank you Consumerist! I’ve been looking for a decent source for antique looking books for a couple of art projects. I don’t care what their content is, because they won’t be books when I’m done with them.
This might be perfect!
I am more intellectually intimidated by a hopeless mismatch of shapes and colors stacked double-deep and sideways than by the “law library” look. It’s the sign of a book collection in active and continual use and transition. But I am also aesthetically attracted to old books with faded gilding on the spine and a complete stranger’s name on the inside cover – it brings out the book nerd in me who deeply, secretly, still wants to curl up in the attic of the elementary school with a mysterious book and an apple and the promise of a ride on a luck dragon.
I knew a guy right out of college who bought a bunch of random old leather books at a used book store to make a display on the mantle of the fireplace in his apartment. He never once opened a cover on any of them.
I guess they made his pad look “distinguished” but knowing where they came from I always thought it made him look like a douche.
@Rectilinear Propagation: Older printing systems bound the books using a multiple-fold technique (like one sheet folded into 32 pages), but did not slice off the folds on the outside. To read the book, you would sit there with a butter knife or letter opener or fancy little book knife and carefully slice along the fold as you got to each page. This was also common in magazine printing, and it’s used as a telling detail in a lot of American fiction from the era.
Who the hell measures things in feet these days? … oh right, only Amerca, Liberia, Burma. Come on jerks, get with the program. Books by the metre please!
Library book sales often have great antique looking books for very cheap (cents!). I got a ton from my college library sales (I’d imagine college libraries would be better for this). I think I even read some of them.
Hmm… If I’m ever in someone’s house who I suspect is doing this, I’m just going to start grabbing books from the shelf and saying “Oh, I’ve heard about this. Is it any good?” That’ll teach ‘em.
This practice seems excessively narcissistic to me…and unwise. Think about it: you’re adding kindling to your house without any functional benefit. You know, I think I’m going to start keeping jars of petrol on my selves…for the decorative enhancement.
@CatMoran: Nope, they still do it in signatures, which is what you call the 16 pages which are all printed on both sides of a very, very large sheet. They’re then folded, and either cut, stitched in the centre, and re-cut, or glued, then cut, and finally bound. (for hardcover – for softcover / magazines, they’re cut on four sides, then glued, bound, and re-cut) Take a magnifying glass to the top of the spine of a hardcover book to see it. (I’m such a dork.)