Collection Development
In the early Nineteen-fifties the poet, novelist and editor Raymond Queneau circulated a pamphlet with an overview of the best books and authors. He asked 200 authors, 99 per cent French, to select their 100 top choices. Then he assembled the results and published a book called Pour Une Bibliothèque Idéale (Gallimard, 1956). Fortunately, this […]
Bibliothèque Idéale
A list of books that have contributed to my understanding, with the understanding that it could be different on the next blue moon. Homer: The Iliad (850 B.C.) Herodotus: Histories (480-425 B.C.) Plato: Dialogues (427-348 B.C.) Aeschylus: Oresteia (459 B.C.) Sophocles: Oedipus (496-406 B.C.) Lycophron: Alexandra (285-247 B.C.) Vergil: Aeneid (19 B.C.) The Bible Petronius: The […]
Organizing the Library
A good library arrangement is not achieved at once, but is a slow growth through difficulties met and conquered. Unlike the strict arrangement the Dewey Decimal System imposes on an academic or professional library, a private library requires an attractive appearance as well as an order that can be intuited. Imposing a coherent, cohesive and […]
On Collecting
Style reveals the man. The building of a library is an act of style, an expression of what we are and a good measure of who we are. Collecting is an act of self-realization. One collects books and builds a library to create an intensified environment. It is a philosophical statement as this room is […]
![Albert Hadley\'s Astor Library (Feliciano for NY Times)](http://www.the-private-library.com/wp-content/gallery/eyecandy/hadley-astor_-feliciano_0.jpg "\\"Perhaps (Albert Hadley\'s) most celebrated work was the library at the Park Avenue home of Brooke Astor. He transformed a high-ceilinged faux-French drawing room into a strikingly elegant space with red-lacquered shelves and brass trim befitting a client who had given considerable philanthropic support to libraries, especially the New York Public Library.\\" Bruce Weber")
