'Celebrity Book Curator' Is A Job, Because Rich People Suck

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'Celebrity Book Curator' Is A Job, Because Rich People Suck

Are you tired of your messy bookshelves looking like a strip mall Barnes & Noble? Wouldn't you look smarter and more well-read if they instead looked more like the background of an injury lawyer commercial? Then you need Gwyneth Paltrow's personal "book curator," a man who has made it his job to judge a book by its cover.

Thatcher Wine is a bookseller, but with a trendy twist. Wine doesn't treat books like they're literature; he sells them like they're expensive Scandinavian furniture. In an interview with Town & Country, the premiere publication for tips on how to make your immigrant maid cry, Wine talks about his job designing books for the rich and famous. Not the bookshelves or the libraries, but the books themselves. Based on "interest, author and even color," Wine has "curated" entire aesthetically pleasing collections for the very beautiful-looking bookshelves of Hollywood royalty like Shonda Rhimes and Gwyneth Paltrow. His custom book covers have been featured on Paltrow's hipster Skymall site Goop, in lists of items to buy so people don't mistake you for a poor.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE SA GER
Juniper Books
"I wish my books were more like jeans" is one of J.D. Salinger's lesser-known quotes.

Custom book jackets are, in fact, Wine's bread and butter. Ranging between $50 and $1,000 per set, these carefully designed flaps hide away those unkempt books whose trophy titles you still want to proudly display on your bookshelf, but not in the way those dumb publishers or authors intended. Our favorite is the pre-distressed book cover set, to really sell the illusion that you can actually read.

Of course, sometimes his rich and dubiously literate clients don't even know where to start! Well, Wine has a scheme for them too. "Many of these young clients are just starting out and have not amassed personal book collections, but they have a library to fill and they have the money to do it right," says Kelly Murphy, an interior designer who refers her apparently too-rich clients to Wine. But that's not a problem for Wine, the only bookseller who also sells literature by the foot. You can get 12 inches of random bookshelf stuffers, chosen for their aesthetically pleasing sizes and colors. They will make not only your bookshelf pop, but also the veins in the eyes of every librarian in a five-mile radius.

But does Wine also have an interested in the contents of books? You wouldn't think so from reading his interview. He does give one piece of literary insight which he tells his clients: "The Stoic philosophers are having a moment now." Of course, if you'd crack open one of their books, you'd find they'd have a pretty strong opinion on their wisdom being used to promote vanity and status -- not that any of Wine's clients will run the risk of cracking those very fetch spines.

For more weird tangents and his personal recipes for toilet wine, do follow Cedric on Twitter.

For more, check out Disney's New 'Lady And The Tramp' Stars An Actual Tramp and Your Urine's A Weapon In The Upcoming Game 'Death Stranding'.

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