A few bookish bits and pieces to amuse, amaze, and advise.
Here is a funny piece on the ubiquitous 'three-for-two' offers, but from a writer's point of view - I'd never thought of them in that way before!
Thanks to Dark Puss for the link to this astonishing work - but is such 'surgery' anathema to those of us for whom a book's condition really matters?
And thanks to Lisa W for letting me know that she'd just read Henrietta's War and thought it "a terrific little book". For all of us who hope Bloomsbury will in due course publish the second volume, Henrietta sees it through, remember we can contact them and tell them how much we've enjoyed the first one and ask them for the second!
I'd like to acknowledge that the link I provided was brought to my attention by Dave "Steampunk" S******, a respected young colleague of mine.
Posted by: Dark Puss | 24 July 2009 at 09:02 AM
My copy of Henrietta's War arrived yesterday (after caving earlier this week) and I am very excited about reading it.
Posted by: Claire (Paperback Reader) | 24 July 2009 at 11:46 AM
Are you a speleologist? :-)
Posted by: Dark Puss | 24 July 2009 at 12:28 PM
In general, I do think that Altered Books are WRONG. I don't like to see books ever destroyed or defaced or in any way rendered unreadable. Its not the thing itself that matters, its the power of the words within, and if those are hidden or cut out then something very precious indeed has gone.
But those are possibly the most beautiful altered books I have ever seen. I do like the way that he has worked with the illustrations and words of the original text. But still... No, I can't condone it. I just can't.
Posted by: Ros | 25 July 2009 at 12:38 PM
Most bookdealers spend a portion of the week throwing out the books the public can't bear to see die - we get to put the over-produced, outdated, the damaged and the simply unsaleable out of their misery! I know charity shops skip an awful lot of unsaleable books too. I think Brian Dettmer's wonderful Book Autopsies are preferable to me ripping the boards off and chucking them in the recycling!
Seriously - how many 1926 dictionaries, for example, does the world really want? or 1950s school atlases? or Doctor and nurse romances from the 1970s? A few collectors will exist for any book you name but the world doesn't need the whole print run retaining for posterity!
Obviously you should check a book's value and rarity before taking a craft knife to it, but this is otherwise a great re-use and not wrong at all.
Posted by: Juxtabook | 27 July 2009 at 10:12 PM