Mystery solved in just three red and black books--the perfect color scheme for the subject.
I sometimes wait years to complete such pieces until I have just the right books. Patience may be its own reward but shelf space is a daily blessing. I maintain a library of abut 5,000 books in order to have both visual and verbal choices for my compositions.
Most books do not look great without their dust jackets. Most that do say nothing of use to me. But when I see something that might be useful one day I am obliged to collect it and wait for just the right combination of color, subject, dimensions -- even the direction of the type on the spine matters in these pieces.