Category: Books on Books

When I began learning book art skills 10 years ago, I also started collecting bookish books. Not only how-to manuals but such things as exhibition catalogues, design books, even a few books of fiction that feature books or bookbinders. I thought it would be fun to go through my shelf and share my collection on my blog. I’ve already written a few book reviews — see the books on books category — but now I’m making the reviews a bit more regular.
Soon after taking my first workshop at the San Francisco Center for the Book, I knew I wanted to make book arts more than just a hobby. But after nearly 20 years in the computer industry, it was daunting to map out a mid-life change in course — should I return to school for formal training? Where? Could I really put my life on hold for a few years and return to school full time? What did I want to concentrate on — fine binding, artist’s books, the content and design of the interiors?
I’d like to report that I went about learning a new trade in an organized and logical manner. But I didn’t. Instead I made many starts and stops and detours along the way. One person who was much more linear in her approach to starting a new career is Annie Tremmel Wilcox. In her memoir, A Degree of Mastery: A Journey through Book Arts Apprenticeship (New Rivers Press, 1999), she alternates between her experience as the first woman apprentice to master bookbinder William Anthony at the University of Iowa and a lovingly detailed account of the restoration and conservation of a book she worked on. The long (5 year) apprenticeship program is rare today in the craft and trade world here in the US, but this throwback to the learning methods of an earlier time marries so perfectly with old books she learns to repair. I particularly appreciated and commiserated with Tremmel’s continual search for the right tool for each task — I’m forever devising new tools to make my editions more efficient to construct. It’s an easy read, made more interesting because it’s about a community I’m involved with and objects (books) that I care about deeply.

This week I read Geraldine Brooks’ new novel People of the Book, an imagined history of a real book, the Sarajevo Haggadah, the oldest surviving Jewish illuminated manuscript, which contains the traditional text that accompanies the Passover Seder.
The history of the book is largely unknown — it’s believed to have been made in Spain some time in the mid-14th century, during the Convivencia, when Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together in relative peace. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and nothing more is known of the book until the 1500’s, when notes in the margin indicate that it surfaced in Venice and was saved from the book burnings of the Inquisition. It made its way to Vienna and in 1894 it was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo. However that didn’t assure its survival — during World War II it was smuggled out of the Museum by a Muslim scholar and during the Bosnian War of the 1990’s it was again saved by a Muslim and hidden inside a bank vault.
The plot of the book traces the fictional history of the Haggadah by traveling forwards and backwards in place and time. In the present day, Hanna Heath, an Australian book restorer, goes to Sarajevo to do restoration and conservation on the book before it is put on display. As part of her conservation efforts, she tries to ascertain more about the book’s history. In parallel, the reader learns about the book’s travels and owners as it journeys back in time across Europe.
I am amazed by the amount of research that Brooks must have done to write her book. There’s lots of information about bookbinding and conservation, as well as an incredible amount of historical detail. The adventures of the main, present-day narrator, Hanna, are awfully contrived, but the interspersed stories imagining the history of the Haggadah are much better. Certainly reading it was a fine way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon!

I call the books I design and make “artist’s books”. According to Wikipedia, “Artists’ books (also called bookworks) are works of art realized in the form of a book. They are usually published in small editions, though sometimes they are one-of-a-kind objects. Artists’ books have employed a wide range of forms, including scrolls, fold-outs or loose items contained in a box.”
I guess that’s an ok definition, but a few pictures would help. While there are lots of pictures on the web and lots of books available, I particularly like Sarah Bodman’s book Creating Artists’ Books. She doesn’t try to define “artists’ book” and instead presents copious examples in this “guide for visual artists who are interested in creating work in the artist’s book format.” Bodman, based in England, has a European slant. And that slant is precisely what makes the book interesting to me. In addition to the many examples and photographs, the appendices provide a resource guide to the book arts in Europe—book shops, galleries, fairs, events, organizations and journals. Bodman touches on all aspects of the book arts, even providing a section on ways to display books effectively. And at $15 it’s a steal. [It’s available from Amazon.]
Bodman works at the Center for Fine Print Research at UWE Bristol. They have a bi-monthly newsletter, produce a bi-annual yearbook, and have a PDF publication called Artists’ Books Creative Production and Marketing. But the project I like best is Bookmarks, which distributes bookmarks made by artists to encourage interest in the book arts.