From the Library of Diana Vreeland
Let’s suppose you were a total stranger – and a very good friend. That’s a good combination. What would you want to know about me? And how would you go about finding it out? To me the books I’ve read are the gateway. My life has been more influenced by books than by any other […]
From the Library of Alan Pryce-Jones
From my diary June 25, 1991 Mr. Pryce-Jones’s houses, three mid-ninteenth century saltboxes, are on John Street in the heart of Old Newport. I hadn’t been prepared for a compound. His principle residence is at 46 where we found a note addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Thometz asking us to check in at #50. He […]
Fran Lebowitz On Reading
As told to Kurt Thometz. I’m not a collector. I don’t care about things like that. I not a collector because I’m not that organized. I’m not grown-up enough to collect things, but I have acquired a stellar collection of odd books, weirdo books, books that don’t fit easily into categories. I have a very […]
From the Library of John Waters
Reading as a Pleasant Deviation: A Guided Tour of John Waters Library. As told to Kurt Thometz. I was not a book fanatic until I was fifteen and discovered Genet and Burroughs and all these Grove Press books and thought, thank God, I’m not that abnormal. That opened up a whole new world to me. […]
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")
