Book Accessories & Home Libraries

It is no surprise that steampunk aesthetics are easily applied to home office equipment. A home office is really an extension of the traditional home library or study which reached the heights of design in Victorian times. So, if you want to achieve a sleek steampunk look you should start with a traditional home library design, not much different from what you can see in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Jay Walker’s famous library can also serve as an inspiration. Note how the lighting has been updated, compared to the more …

LibraryThing has a discussion about weird objects used as bookmarks. For the most part these are discovered by librarians who deal with receiving and re-shelving borrowed books. I compiled a convenient list of such bookmarks. Just keep in mind that you will have to go through it in order to find out what the absolute strangest bookmarks are.

Geographical globes should and can be considered a sort of book accessory! Envision a distinguished gentleman who is reading in his study. Every once in a while he looks at a large globe, just to get a better idea of distances between remote parts of the British Empire, described in the book. And so on. These days, the gentleman would probably use Google Earth. But you still cannot beat the look of an old globe. It creates a visual departure from the rectangles dominating your home library or office. Another good …

Just some facts about writing habits and quirks of several famous authors. Inevitably, writing accessories are a part of many such peculiar traits. Or perhaps, some writers created their own writing accessories?
Henry L. Mencken, Edgar Allan Pe, May Sarton and Maxime Kumin liked to do their writing in attic rooms.
Flannery O’Connor turned her desk away from the window.
Edna St. Vincent Millay used a one-room cabin in the woods.
Balzac used to drink over 10 cups of coffee every day.
Dan Brown keeps an hourglass on his desk and, on the hour, puts …

Here are a few desks and writing tables that were used by some popular writers. Reading and writing accessories, as well as traditional decor elements can be seen in several of these pictures. You can just imagine the countless hours that these famous writers spent behind these desks, composing eternal masterpieces!