What a great gift for your friend! I am a retired librarian and would love a quilt like that - adding it to my "to do" list. Did you know that Connecting Threads has a fabric line called "Bookish"? One of the patterns has due date stamps on a solid background. Might be really cute for a border...
If you want to drive your friend "crazy" make one of the books look like it was put on the shelf backwards with the pages showing.
