This beautifully colourful shelf is far from ‘light reading’, and if you take a closer look you may notice that these books are not all that they seem. Australian-born architectural student Daryl Fitzgerald ‘illustrates’ bricks in his spare time giving them a new purpose. Daryl is an old friend of mine from Cyprus and as I love to champion independent businesses and creatives, I just had to feature Light Reading on the blog. Daryl has even offered one of my readers a chance to win a pair of Brick Books – so keep reading to find out how to enter!
The idea came about when Daryl wanted to give some old bricks that he’d seen a new purpose in life. In Melbourne he noticed a house that was renovating their front garden filled with overgrown weeds and uneven pavers to become a modern but bleak regular front garden. All the old pavers were piled to one side for weeks – sadly staring out onto the road just waiting for the end to come. One day Daryl was so overwhelmed by them that he knocked on the front door to see if he could take some away – although bewildered by the request, the old couple who lived inside gave him so many he had to make several trips on foot!
Painting them to look like books was subconsciously quite a personal decision revealing how he feels when picking up an old classic, or start to read a new one.
All of the bricks come from a mixture of local building sites and brick yards in London or Melbourne. Although there have been instances where Daryl would come across one in the street that would look so good he’d would have to take it home! Specific old bricks are really hard to come by, especially now with the UK’s brick shortage, but you can still find gems every now and again. Since starting Light Reading, Daryl has been inspired by the different shapes, styles, purposes, historic era, and even regional clays that are all around us.
Matching bricks to titles is one of the big challenges and Daryl often gets told off for not matching the thickness of the book to the brick! But as with any art, it’s very much down to personal choice. Daryl tries to match the character of the book with a brick – classics etched onto thick heavy bricks, whereas cult titles suit irregular shapes and novels on thinner bricks. For example, an Iliad suits all kinds of chips and bits missing whereas a Le Petite Prince might suit smaller bricks or a Das Kapital might suit a large heavy brick – it’s whatever feels right at the time. Sometimes the raw colour of the brick just doesn’t match the theme of the book, so it gets coloured first for a closer match.
Daryl handpaints all of these brick books from a garden studio in London, it’s a very open space and so when it’s sunny, you’ll find him there painting a War and Peace or The Tale of Peter Rabbit! And this is all in Daryl’s spare time between working and studying for his part two exams – but I can imagine it’s a great way to relax too.Light Reading’s
library of stencils has grown (and continues to grow) from personal requests and recommendations. At the moment the list is about 100-120 strong with some of the most interesting books around, but the list is always being updated and they’re open to suggestions and requests! You can see a selection of brick books available to buy on the Light Reading Etsy page or contact Daryl for details.
Natalia xo
I keep hearing about these bricks. They’re awesome. Love how something which would usually be discarded are being put to good use. My two favourite books would be the Clockwork Orange and Valley of the Dolls. They would really stand out on my sideboard which I’ve recently painted in charcoal.
Moby Dick and Amerika on black bnrick
Oh I absolutely love these, what a fantastic idea! I love the idea of using them as book ends amongst my other books, I would choose Mary Poppins and Moby Dick. Great giveaway, thank you. Amanda from The Ana Mum Diary.
Moby Dick and The Garden Party
mary poppins and valley of dolls
Lovely! I would choose Valley of the Dolls (pink) and Mary Poppins (raw) Thank you!
moby dick and valley of dolls
Fantastic idea I would choose Le petit Prince on light blue and Clockwork Orange on orange and white!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/216536813/painted-brick-book-catcher-in-the-rye?ref=shop_home_active_2
and
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/216629168/painted-brick-book-20000-leagues-under?ref=listing-shop-header-0
Clockwork Orange and The Garden Party. Great fun!
It has to look like heavy reading ;-) so I would choose Clockwork Orange and Das Kapital
Mary Poppins and moby dick thankyou
Le petit Prince and Mary Poppins
Moby Dick and Clockwork Orange
moby dick and clockwork orange x
Valley of The dolls and Clockwork Orange
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea & A Clockwork Orange
These are a great idea. I’d love a pair as bookends: Le Petit Prince and Catcher in the Rye.