As an avid reader and collector of books who organizes the thousands of titles in my apartment by the color of their spine—on an expansive shelf of reclaimed wood that spans one-hundred square feet—the challenge of selecting 15-18 books that are marked favorites, was a distinct and nearly impossible challenge. It's one Jane Mount put me up to a few months ago, when she emailed asking for my selection of "ideal books," for her show Ideal Bookshelves, which opens at The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco tomorrow, May 14th.

Ideal Bookshelf 27: JH by Jane Mount

I slowly pulled down Margaret Kilgallen's In The Sweet Bye & Bye (the first edition pink-cover version), A Summer's Day by Joel Meyerowitz, and Selected Poems by e.e. cummings, each eliciting a memory of when those books were acquired and how I first languored over their pages. I got excited putting together a collection, then felt fraught with great indecision, knowing that my "ideal" may soon be permanently down on paper in gouache and ink.

The exhibition features paintings, print and postcards of the bookshelves of friends around the country—the shelves of chefs, designers, artists, moms, dads, kids and collaborators. Jane is a firm believer that books say a lot about who a person is. She writes, in the statement accompanying the five Ideal Bookshelves available as editions on 20x200, "For a while, I've been documenting people's bookshelves as a form of portraiture; you can actually learn a lot about folks by their book covers."

Ideal Bookshelf 20: CR by Jane Mount

The ideal component of the series makes a slight departure from the literal organization of titles (messy or perfectly stacked as they may be), as an amalgamation of favorite books that might not sit next to each other in real life. One can fancifully add books they've lusted over but never acquired, rare editions that are no longer available, and books exterminated by time and use that live on in memory.

So, if you are in San Francisco tomorrow, stop on over to The Curiosity Shoppe (where there are lots of fantastic books, trinkets and objects worth browsing in addition to the gallery), and browse amongst Jane's painted shelves.

Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM by Jane Mount (editions available on 20x200)

Ideal Bookshelves, Works by Jane Mount
Opening Party: Friday, May 14, 6-8 p.m.
The Curiosity Shoppe
855 Valencia St., San Francisco

For those of you unable to make it to the party, or to the show, the works will also be available for viewing and for purchase on the The Curiosity Shoppe's Gallery.