A Whole Lot of Nothing

I actually did some setting & printing over the past month, but I can't talk much about the things for now. Instead, it's another collection of unrelated comments and almost-news. Also, I've updated the (non-HM) book sale/cull page on the Web site, if you feel like doing some shopping.

Some finished sheets - intentionally not well shown here - from Will Rueter's Books Are My Utopia. Don't want to spoil the fun of seeing them for the first time in person. Claudia starts binding this month, the edition should be ready for issue in April.

Vaughan Oliver's recent death reminded me that my deluxe copy of This Rimy River needed some repair. It's a catalogue for an exhibition of his work (primarily for 4AD) from 1994. The deluxe issue (400 copies) is basically the same as the trade, but with all kinds of wild metallic overprinting. It's wonderful. The binding is interesting: the text block is joined at the front and back, by stubs about one inch wide, to a leather spine. (Looks like bonded leather, and it hasn't been pared.) The boards are sheets of acrylic that have an image machined in, notched along the spine edges to allow the leather joints to lie flush with the inside face. The boards were originally attached using some kind of adhesive, probably a double-sided tape. My copy of this book came from a few found in a warehouse in the '00s. Upon arrival, the front board completely detatched from the joint at first opening. Ugh. I tried fixing it with the much-missed 3M 889 double-sided conservation tape (what I used for the deluxe bindings of Aurora Teardrops, which was ripped of from inspired by This Rimy River). The tape, which has never let me down in any number of uses, could not hold the two pieces together. So I reluctantly decided to try contact cement, with fears of coating the lovely book in ruinous strands of glue. I didn't, and 24 hours later the board was firmly in place. But an example of an interesting idea for a binding that suffered from a lack of understanding of materials & methods. Nonetheless, cool book, happy to have a copy.  

The frontis from Annales typographici ab artis inventae origine ad annum (1719). Careful who you order a copy from, they may decide it's underpriced and make up a reason why it can't be shipped. Abe used to allow customers to provide seller feedback, but that ended ages ago. And can't we get these people who will make up a facsimile of any book you search for - in a deluxe binding no less! - to go away?  

The Bromer's current gallery exhibition features etchings by the excellent D. R. Wakefield, who has been issuing beautiful books through his Chevington Press for years. He's based in the U.K., and his books aren't widely or frequently encountered in North America, so this is definitely worth seeing.  

The Griffo project is underway, but I probably won't be posting much about it during production - more doing and less talking about doing this year. Publication remains scheduled for fall of this year.