By Azzurra Rinaldi. Cover image Giovan Battista Dell’Arno.

There is a figure that has been quietly revolutionizing the way we think about books: the bookstyler. Someone who pairs reads with aesthetics, wardrobes, and moods. As a librarian, I find this irresistible. So here are five unexpected books for five very different styles. The only question is: which one are you?

Punk: The Book That Refuses to Be a Book

S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams, Canongate Books

Punk is chaos: it is colorful, and it can be violent and brutal. Punk music is “badly” played, voices scream, we have mohawks, ripped jeans, leather bomber jackets, piercings, and tattoos. Punk is something that is out of the box, exactly like the book S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams. Not so much because of the story, which is quite unusual, but more for its form and how it looks.

The book comes in a box whose title doesn’t correspond to the title of the book itself. It looks like it was stolen from a library (PLEASE DON’T STEAL BOOKS FROM LIBRARIES), it is covered in handwritten notes in the margins with colored pens, and, last but not least, inside you find postcards, pictures, and maps tucked between the pages. It can be read in different ways: the important thing is to discover, together with the two protagonists who dialogue through handwritten notes, the mystery of the novel’s author, Straka.

Like punk, it refuses structure. It’s messy, fragmented, and alive.

Gothic: The Book That Traps You Like a Labyrinth 

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Pantheon

The keyword for gothic style is black. Black souls, vampiric, and extremely elegant (or so it should be). I admit that it is my favorite style. I was a “gothic girl lost in a dark world,” as my favorite band used to sing. Now I am more like a colorful lollipop.

Anyway, the book I chose for the Gothic style is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It has a black cover, and it will make you get lost in a labyrinth created both by the story and by the mise en page.

At the beginning, it seems like a normal novel, but then the letters are upside down, black pages appear, and the story becomes terrifying: a house that changes, that grows, and that, in the end, consumes its inhabitants.

House of Leaves is a perfect book for the gothic style: black outside and in its soul, like a vampire.

A book that becomes space. The text changes direction, disappears, and traps you. The story is already unsettling, but the form makes it even more unstable. You don’t feel in control while reading it. Like gothic style, it’s about atmosphere, disorientation, and psychological depth.

Fashion Victim: The Most Sophisticated Book Ever Written

Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes by Raymond Queneau, Gallimard

Fashion victim literally means a person who is a victim of fashion and, for this reason, wears only clothes by important brands. So, it is a very sophisticated person, and in my opinion Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes by Raymond Queneau is one of the most sophisticated and elegant books ever written.

The cover is made of white cotton with the title in red italics. This means that it is very delicate. Inside, it is composed of strips, one verse for each strip, and you can choose them to compose your own poem.

As the fashion victim uses different brands to build their own style, the book works in the same way: from different strips written by Queneau, a unique poem is created by the reader.

Like in fashion, the reader becomes the stylist.

Casual: The Style That Thinks More Than It Shows

Crossings by Alex Landragin, Griffin

Casual is a simple style: you wear a sweater, jeans, and that’s all. Basic but comfortable, neutral colors, very little makeup, almost no accessories.

But behind the basics, there can be the most sophisticated thoughts about “what do I wear today?”

The book related to this style is Crossings by Alex Landragin. At first glance, it seems like a very simple book, even though the title is not very striking, but behind this simplicity there are two novels that cross and compose a new one.

You have to jump from the beginning to the final part of the book, then go back to the middle to follow the new story.

Exactly like thoughts, the third novel is silent and not strongly visible, and, like casual style, it is built with measure and balance.

Like a casual look, it seems easy and effortless. But it is actually carefully constructed.

Rockabilly: The Most Deliriously Colorful Book Ever Made

Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini, FMR Franco Maria Ricci

We are in an ironic galaxy full of colors and ‘50s-style images, renewed with tattoos and brightly colored hair. Back to polka dots and bows. Elvis is the divinity to pray to.

The book I chose reflects this irony: Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini.

It looks like a medieval codex, with colorful images without any clear meaning; the language is completely invented.

Like the 1950s of rockabilly and the Middle Ages of the Codex, which never really existed in this way, the wrong representation of the past becomes a way to play with it, mixing nostalgia and eccentricity — something recognizable, but completely reimagined.