Bookish Halloween costume ideas

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Still haven’t decided on your Halloween costume and don’t want to go as my perennial favorite “person who got dressed in the dark”? Here are a few bookish possibilities that aren’t the sure-to-be-popular Harry Potter or Max from Where the Wild Things Are:

—Go as Sarah Palin. Yes, that may have been overdone in 2008, but you can give your costume a 2009 update by carrying around a pen and paper and saying, “I’m a real writer.” Then, have your spouse/partner/kid/sibling/sidekick go as Palin’s ghostwriter by dressing as a ghost and carrying a pen.

—The American Academy of Poets offers suggestions for five really easy different poet/author costumes, including Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, and the Ancient Greek poet Sappho. (Notably, there are no literary figures of color on the list.) The simplest is either the Poe costume (moustache, bowtie, velvet blazer, eyeshadow, disheveled hair) or the Whitman costume, which requires nothing but a collared shirt, beard, jeans or other worn pants, and a floppy brown hat.

—Dress up as a Freudian slip. I saw a woman do this in college: She just wore a slip dress with “id,” “ego,” and “super ego” written along the edges. Admittedly, the idea might come off as a bit pretentious to anyone but pseudo intellectual co-eds and academics.

Have other suggestions for easy bookish costumes? Please share them in the comments section below.