David Paler Photographs the Books of the Dead

Photo: DavidPaler.com

I love finding treasure in trash reading. The other day, I was skimming an article about Kelly Ripa putting her apartment on the market for $24.5 million (!!) and idly clicked over to the website of the photographer who took photos of the property. David Paler specializes in architecture and interiors, which gives him poignant insight into a little-talked-about situation: photographing the possessions — in particular the library — of the recently deceased.

But it’s the bookcases and their contents that usually catch my attention. When you shoot enough apartments both living and dead, you can tell when someone buys books for show and when they actually read them. It’s fascinating to see literally acres of paper, literature they read in university and out, row upon row of history books and biographies, solemn legal or medical tomes utilized for a life’s work, or vast art book collections, many out of print. Generations of books. There were times where I found that the deceased owner was actually the author of several of the books, and I wondered how much knowledge and wisdom was lost.

You can read the rest of David's article here and view his portfolio here.