5 Things Books and Umbrellas Have in Common
I’ve always loved books. And I’ve always loved umbrellas. So naturally, I wrote a book about umbrellas. During the writing and editing process, I looked up a lot of facts about umbrellas: I memorized the names of their different parts, I looked into the history of the materials used to produce them, and I tried to identify what it is I’ve always admired about them. Certainly I love the rain, and I love walking outside while it’s raining, but I don’t necessarily love being wet—which is where umbrellas come in!
I’ve always loved the fashion aspect of a good umbrella, too. My current favorite is a compact, foldable umbrella with a bright yellow canopy and a duckhead handle (by eco-friendly and women-owned maker Original Duckhead). I love their practicality and their quirkiness, their usability and ease. And I really love holding them while I splash along in puddles (wearing rainboots, of course, which are my second favorite rainy day accessory!).
As I worked on The Umbrella Maker’s Son, I noted a whole world of similarities between two of my favorite things: books and umbrellas. I connected lines I’d never really thought about before, and realized I loved nothing more than tucking a book and an umbrella into my bag and setting out into a gloomy, gray day.
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So what do books have in common with umbrellas? I’m so glad you asked…
1. They are both necessary objects—and have been so for a very long time! The earliest known form of writing was found in ancient Mesopotamia in 3400 BC, etched onto clay tablets. The first known umbrellas were believed to come from China around 3500 BC. These were made with bamboo and either paper or animal skins and used for protection against both sun and rain. Umbrellas are a practical, necessary, day-to-day form of portable comfort, protection, and convenience. Writing is a vital form of communication, entertainment, and instruction. It feels meaningful that their inventions were so close together (if from two very different parts of the world!). Humans need to be protected from the elements, and they need to be able to communicate with each other. And we clearly identified these needs a very long time ago!
2. Throughout history, they’ve been used as symbols of wealth and status. In the 19th Century, English nobility began carrying umbrellas crafted of the finest silk. This wasn’t for any real practical purpose, but rather to show that they could afford such luxurious materials. In his essay on the history of using books as status symbols, Frank Furedi notes that private libraries became popular among Europeans in the fifth century as a way to showcase their extreme wealth. Books were expensive back then, and certainly not easily accessible to the general public. A well-stocked library—and a silk umbrella!—were easy ways to show people that you had money.
3. The choices are endless! There’s a genre of book out there to suit every single type of reader in the world, whether you crave romance, suspense, mystery, horror, drama, comedy…the list goes on and on! Umbrellas, too, come in a myriad of different forms, from compact to automatic to bubble and storm. There’s really a book and an umbrella to fit your exact style and taste!
4. They’re always in demand! The number of printed books sold in America in 2022 was about 789 million! While umbrellas don’t reach quite that number, an estimated 33 million umbrellas are sold here every year. Books and umbrellas will always sell, because we’ll always have weather, just like we’ll always have a desire and need for new stories.
5. They’ve both been used in various forms of art and sculpture. I’m clearly not the only artist who has ever been drawn to umbrellas! Take Angie’s Umbrella by Jim Pridgeon and Benson Shaw, for instance. This is a 30-foot tall art installation in Seattle, Washington, that depicts an inside-out umbrella that turns with the wind. Books have similarly always been a source of inspiration for artists; Alicia Martín’s series of art installations Biografias features a veritable flood of books tumbling out of the windows of various buildings. So why are artists so drawn to these subjects, so as to come back and feature them again and again? I think it’s for all the same reasons that I love them—they combine practicality with whimsy, usability with quirkiness, they’re relatively affordable—and besides all that, they’re just really, really fun!
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