Books As Urban Accessories

"Most customers at the Anthropologie store in SoHo come for the delicately woven knits and the ultra-feminine floral dresses. But these days at least some are coming for the books.

"Last Sunday the merchandise and books were coordinated with near-perfect precision. Resting beside a black sweater ($68) and a jet-black skirt with orange embellishments ($118) were copies of Annie Leibovitz's A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005, big and black and gleaming, for $75. A pop-up book called One Red Dot echoed a display of polka-dotted canvas sneakers, while another title, The Persistence of Yellow, perfectly matched a strategically positioned yellow knit sweater.

"Books are turning up in the oddest places these days."

- "Selling a Little Literature to Go With Your Lifestyle," New York Times front page, November 2

A partial list of books found on a first-floor table at the Urban Outfitters on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, until our correspondent suddenly suffered shortness of breath and ran out of the store screaming.

1. Illustrations Now!/Julius Wiedmann

2. An Inconvenient Truth/Al Gore

3. Body Type/Ina Saltz

4. Icons of Fashion: The 20th Century (Prestel's Icons)/Gerda Buxbaum

5. 350 Best Sex Positions (or Sex Tips, we're not sure, possibly by the editors of Cosmo, who apparently couldn't come up with 365)

6. Bad Cat/Tracy McGuinness

7. Orgasms: How to Have Them, Give Them, and Keep Them Coming/Lou Paget

8. The Daily Cocktail: 365 Intoxicating Drinks and the Outrageous Events That Inspired Them/Dalyn Miller and Larry Donovan. Apparently all but 15 of them will result in sex.

9. 350 Ways to Change the World/Author unknown, but possibly the editors of Cosmo.

10. Sex Everyday in Every Way/Nerve.com. The smart guys in marketing came up with a clear competitive advantage here. Next year: Sex Twice a Day in Two Different Ways, or 730 Ways to Have Orgasm: An Inconvenient Truth Involving Outrageous Cocktails, Illustrated!

11. Street: The Nylon Book of Global Style/The editors of Nylon magazine.

12. Maripolarama/Anna Sui

13. Lucha Libre something or other/Author unknown

14. Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell/Amy Sohn

15. The Modern Girl's Guide to Life/Jane Buckingham