This hardly counts as a book review, but if you are anything like me, you will thrill at the revelation that The Antiquarian Sticker Book exists. Actually, these books, but we’ll get to that in a second. I was wandering a bookstore, actually looking for a souvenir. In this interesting area near the journals, I saw this beautiful book with an old-timey air and I picked it up. It was a book of stickers, but super classy. A sticker book for grown-ups?! When I was a kid, I totally collected stickers. For that matter, so did my daughter. Even as an adult, I feel a draw toward sheets of stickers at the store and I still have some old packs stowed away with my art supplies. But these? How genius. I had to have it.

There are three of these books: The Antiquarian Sticker Book, The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Bibliophilia, and The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Imaginarium. All with a Victorian, Gothic, almost steam-punk vibe, they’re hard-back books chock-full of style, with 1,000+ stickers from small to quite large. They’re pretty random and quirky and the one that I ended up getting–Bibliophilia–has whole pages of stylized letters. Unnecessary? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.

My only complaint is that the stickers are very papery. It’s almost not a complaint, because the matte finish gives the stickers a more refined, more adult, and prettier air than the usual, glossy stickers. However, I do feel like they won’t hold up to as much, since they are essentially unfinished paper, so maybe they shouldn’t land on my mug or notebook cover.

I imagine that after I am done, the book could be mined for paper (I collage) and also used as an altered book (see HERE if you don’t know what I’m talking about). Still, I am super happy with the stickers and this book, and I might just get the other two, some day.

Or some other brand? It turns out Odd Dot (the publisher) is not the only one on to this market. DK also makes a series (maybe less for grown-ups and more for the science-y type), including The Botanist’s Sticker Anthology, The Birds, Bees, and Butterflies Sticker Anthology, and The Seashore Sticker Anthology. Joan Derrian has The Joan Derrian Sticker Book, Chloe Standish has Sticker Studio: Arcana and Atlantis, Thunder Press has Harry Potter: World of Stickers, and Peter Pauper Press has Loads of Ephemera Sticker Book. There’s a William Morris Sticker Book and–to open another can of worms–an Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage. I can not speak for any of these books, their quality or anything, but they all look very intriguing online. The good news here is that if you believe in reconnecting to the child-you, this might be just the thing to have lying about, especially if you deal with paper or words or art much. There are hobbies I left behind me at some point because I grew up. I am currently rediscovering roller skating, dressing up (cosplay), and collecting stickers because they all bring me a little bit of joy and just about anything is possible these days.