Book Props or Happy Birthday, Mr. Auden

On a book list-serv this query went out: "We've just received a request for permission from a Hollywood production company for one of our books to play a bit part in an upcoming movie, and it's a really small part--just sitting on a college professor's desk. It's not referred to in dialogue or otherwise focused on; it's just a background prop, like a lamp or a chair or a painting on the wall. This is a new one on me, so I thought I'd see if any of you has experience in this area." (Here "Franseca's Kitchen" is selling bookends, not books.)

Books as props. When I first took my job at West Publishing they told me about the much larger law book division. "Do you know of it?' they asked me? No, I couldn't say I did. "Yes, you do, you just don't realize it. Remember Perry Mason? Those gold-and-red books he always sat in front of? Those are our books. We send them out all the time." They told me about the production company that once sent back a certain load of law books because they clashed with Paul Newman's eyes.

An editor at a company that publishes books on psychiatry said they've had their books shown on "The Sixth Sense" and "ER." Another press said a few of their books were slated to be used by Ben Stiller on "The Night Museum," but then the character ended up using a computer, not books, for his research.


I'd love to have the job assisting the set designer and be assigned the task of finding books as props. When I was managing editor of a theological publisher a production company called about books they might use for a new movie, "The Seven Deadly Sins." I sent them these.




What joy to see this posted on Steve Martin's website, highlighting the use of our beloved "Chicago Manual of Style" in "Roxanne":
Los Angeles Times
June 28, 1987, Sunday, Home Edition
CRITIC'S NOTES: 'ROXANNE' HAS ITS HEART IN AN INTELLIGENT PLACE
SHEILA BENSON
. . .
" 'Roxanne's' surroundings go a long way toward creating the idea that bright is beautiful. This British Columbia town of Nelson, standing in for an Aspen like ski town in July, has been lit and decorated so that it glows with homeyness and reassurance. It has white frame houses, convivial front porches, a sense of almost enchanted timelessness and warmth. C.D.'s house is a magpie's nest of interests, crammed with books on every subject from seashells to carpentry, with the Chagall print that he will write about so seductively over his fireplace and the Chicago Manual of Style on top of his desk."

Here's a short clip from a former bookshop employee about a wonderful book cameo in "Party Girl" with Parker Posy:

"And as someone who worked at the Strand Book Store for 6 years, I really
enjoyed the nightmare scene where thousands of books came tumbling down
the stairs on her. You could see the little red Strand price stickers
inside the covers as the books tumbled down."

Finally, Reuters News Service ran a review of "The Squid and the Whale" that said, "Director Noah Baumbach dressed actor Jeff Daniels in his father's clothes and used his father's books as props in "The Squid and the Whale," but he insists his movie about a family broken by divorce is fiction."

Now, the Happy Booker (http://thehappybooker.blogs.com/) ran a great piece on the insidious use of books as props by fashionistas and interior designers. The new trend: not books as wonderful leather-bound, limited-edition classics. Not a carefully selected array of color-coordinated spines revealing "Moby-Dick" or "Leaves of Grass" for the well-appointed den. Nope. These days interior designers need not bother with that editing. They are going spine-in. Check it out. The Happy Booker says, "Once Mitchell and Gold start turning their books backwards on the shelves, its only a matter of time before you'll see backward facing books on display at Target. Mark our words."



















Which brings me, thankfully, to the wonderful world of Auden. He was born on February 21, 1907. His poem, "Funeral Blues," was read by John Hannah at the most solemn moment in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral." Auden's literary executor, Edward Mendelson, said that after the movie came out he got "phone calls three times a day asking, 'Where can I buy that poem?' " So Vintage Books and Mendelson put together a book of 10 poems-- "Tell Me the Truth About Love," a small book, of W. H. Auden poems, with a sticker on it proudly announcing, "Includes the poem featured in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' "

I think there is no accident in the star power of a poet like Auden, smash-hit movie or not. His books aren't props but words to live by.