The Pictures: Books in Bulk: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker
The New Yorker has an article about a bookstore that supplies custom-made libraries for purchase or, for comercial displays and movie sets, rental.
Although prop books are meant to be seen and not read, they have to evoke a mise en scène, inside and out. For Indiana Jones, the filmmakers specified that the books cover such topics as paleontology, marine biology, and pre-Columbian society. They had to be in muted colors and predate 1957. "People have gotten so character-specific nowadays," Jenny McKibben, a manager at the store, said. "It can't just be color anymore. With high-def, they can just freeze the film and say, 'Oh, that's so inappropriate.' "
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A valuable service for films, certainly, but ordering a library for a home? I'm hard pressed to think of something more strange, even somewhat offensive and decadent. People exist that supposedly have some small time to read, but not to pick out their books? I can't imagine going home and not knowing what was on the shelves, because I'd had someone else select books that they'd thought I'd like, not to mention biographies of myself, in Speilburg's case. Amazon's recommendations are annoying enough.
I agree with you. Building a library is a deeply personal activity. Paying someone to do it for you is like paying someone to level up your character in an online RPG.