As a seller of collectible, antiquarian, and secondhand books, I get some very interesting queries about old books. The most common questions revolve around the value of specific titles, but I also hear from folks concerned about damage, stains, foxing, and possible mold. These days, I usually forward a copy of the excellent graphic below that comes from the Wallace Conservation lab at Michigan State University Libraries.
Off The Map is a wonderful collage series created by London-based Hungarian artist Zsofia Schweger. The component images all are derived from discarded old maps and found postcards that the artist collected while she was a student in the United States.
Another wonderful cartoon by Grant Snider for the NY Times.
“We were talking about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which was something which resembled an iPad, long before it appeared. And I said when something like that happens, it’s going to be the death of the book. Douglas said, No it won’t be. Books are sharks. And I must have looked baffled at that because he looked very pleased with himself. And he carried on with his metaphor. He said, Books are sharks … because sharks have been around for a very, very long time. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs. And the reason sharks are still in the oceans is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark is. He said, Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in them in microseconds. They’re really good at being books, he said, and books, no matter what else happens, will always survive. And of course he’s right.” Neil Gaiman
This week’s issue of the New Yorker features a post-modernist satirical short story by the award-winning author George Saunders. “Little St.Don” is told in a series of semi-comic vignettes that aim to capture our living nightmare. I’m a big fan of Saunder’s work, especially his short stories, but all I want to read about tangerine Mussolini is his obituary. Anyway, here’s a sample and a link to the magazine:
one day, st. don and a few of his business colleagues saw a blind man begging in the street. “St. Don,” said Michael Cohen, “tell us, is that man blind through his own sin, or did his parents sin?” And St. Don replied, “Hey, I didn’t do it. Both, probably. How should I know? I find it, honestly, a little disgusting. Let’s clear out.”
With that, St. Don spat into the dirt. And the others waited for St. Don to make clay from his spit and the dirt and apply it to the blind man’s eyes and thus heal him. But nothing doing. St. Don just spat into the dirt again, saying, “Did I say let’s get going or what? Are you morons deaf?”
And they all got going.
I loved this sweet, silly video about passionate bibliophiles from the suburban Vancouver BC secondhand bookstore chain The Bookman.
Tom Gauld
You may have to look closely to get the gist of these clever ads for Lisbon’s Livraria Avelar Machado secondhand bookshop. The 142 year-old bookstore has a way with print ad campaigns.
Austin, Texas-based artist and illustrator Chet Phillips has re-imagined vintage British travel posters in a marvelous series of fantasy and horror themed postcards and posters. The set includes a dragon, Doctor Who, a troll, Harry Potter, a giant, and Cthulu. Prints and postcards are available from the artist’s website.
California-based, award-winning photographer David Fokos has an ongoing exhibition at San Diego International Airport called The Book Pages Project. This terrific show is an appreciation of “real” books in their actual physical form—paper pages, fonts, ink, layout—and the powerful contribution books have made to culture. Fokos, who is renowned for his powerful black and white landscape work, wanted to use this project to highlight specific text and to have the viewer see the words themselves as art. You can checkout the entire project online right here.
all images ©David Fokos
Travel Between The Pages 