Books + Stationery

How to Choose Books and Stationery

Start with the person, not the bestseller list. A book on the thing they already love beats a book everyone else is buying.

Art and Design Books

Art books do double duty as objects. Stefano Antonelli and Gianluca Marziani's Banksy is a hardcover survey of the artist's best-known work with commentary from both authors. ACC Publishing's Jean-Michel Basquiat gathers drawings, objects and paintings from private collections and museums. Louis Vuitton and An Eye for Couture cover the fashion side. The bigger statement titles, like Dior in Bloom, The World of David Morris, David Yarrow and National Geographic's The Photographs, sit on this shelf too, and they get their own page in coffee table books.

For the house itself, Leslie Banker's Think Like a Decorator teaches you to see a room the way a decorator does, with insights from celebrated designers. Frida Ramstedt's The Interior Design Handbook covers the basic rules of design and decoration rather than one style. Our bookshelf styling rules cover what to do with them once they're home.

Cocktail Books and Cookbooks

The bar books earn their space: The Encyclopedia of Cocktails, The Essential Cocktail Book, The Essential Bar Book and Art of Cocktails, with Mocktail Club for the zero-proof crowd. The bar tools to go with them live in barware. On the kitchen side, Rick Martínez's Mi Cocina, Eric Wareheim's Steak House, Karen Mordechai's Sunday Suppers and Mariana Velásquez's Revel all read as well on the sofa as they cook.

The book question we hear most is what to get someone who reads everything. Our answer is a cookbook, because nobody owns enough of them.

Small Books and Gift Books

Gift books are the ones you can finish in an evening. The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Jane Austen, Brick of Dad Puns and Q&A a Day for Dad sit at the small end, and The Little Book of Mahjong covers both international and American mahjong.

Stationery, Cards and Wrapping Paper

The card and the wrap finish the gift. Here's what's on the paper side of the shelf.

• Notes: Alexa Pulitzer's hand-drawn notes, flat A6 cards with envelopes, printed with soy-based ink on USA-made stock and designed and printed in New Orleans.
• Letterpress cards: Chez Gagné's cards are printed on a vintage letterpress in California and left blank inside, and Rx Letterpress adds more.
• Greeting cards: Red Cap Cards, Blue Barnhouse, Guttersnipe Press and The Mincing Mockingbird cover birthdays, thank-yous and the cards you'd only send to a close friend.
• Wrapping paper: Red Cap Cards' illustrated prints, plus Giftsland's handmade silkscreen sheets, made with small cottage industries and women's cooperatives in Kathmandu.
• Notebooks: Hester & Cook's illustrated notebooks with stitched binding.
• Desk: Madison Bay's antiqued brass letter openers, and HomArt's Bookkeepers clip stand on a cast iron base.
• Gift bags and small things: The Twentieth's Art Deco wine gift bags, Kikkerland's gadget pens and bookmarks.
• Envelope seals: our own paper plane vinyl seals.

How to Pick a Card

Buy the card for the person, not the occasion. A birthday card that sounds like you beats one that sounds like a greeting card. Write the note before you wrap the gift, keep it to three sentences, and sign it like you'd sign a text. If the card is funny, let the gift be sincere, and the other way around.

Wrapping It Up

Every purchase leaves in High St. branded tissue and a premium bag with cord handles and a gold-foil logo. We don't offer traditional gift wrap, which is exactly why the wrapping paper is on this shelf. Most of it sits in gifts under $50.

Books and Stationery in Cincinnati, in Over-the-Rhine

Books are easier to choose when you can open them. The whole shelf is on the floor in Over-the-Rhine, cards and paper included.

High St. is a 17,000-square-foot lifestyle store at 1401 Reading Rd in Over-the-Rhine. We're open every day but Tuesday, 10am to 6pm, with Sunday hours of 11am to 4pm. In-stock online orders are usually ready for pickup in about two hours, and shipping is free over $150.

Rosemary's and the Design Studio

Rosemary's is inside High St., on the second floor, for reading the first chapter with a coffee. When the bookshelf turns into a room, our Design Studio, CityBeat's Best Interior Designer in 2024, takes it from there.