Birth of a Book

The engaging short film below offers a quick tour of the Smith –Settle printing and bookbinding company in Leeds, England, where books are still made the old-fashioned way. The film’s director Glen Milner covers each step in the process as bookbinders piece together a new hardbound edition of the memoir Mango and Mimosa (1974) by the British writer and painter Suzanne St Albans. From folding pages to sewing and gluing paper to the leather spine, skilled human are front and center throughout. Milner documents this melding of mechanics and craft with an almost musical rhythm, conveying skills and methods born of centuries of refinements.

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