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Bookbinding
Kanazawa has two rivers. The Saigawa and the Asano-gawa (gawa meaning river). Next to the Saigawa near the Sakura Bridge is a restaurant serving good French-fusion food and wine, whiskey, and beer. It is called Frérot.
I fashioned a book for Frérot called Frérot. It is about 120 pages, 7 signatures, and case bound. The right page is lined (faintly) while the left side on alternating pages has small photos of the food found at Frérot.
It was the first time in a very long time that I made a book with the spine different from the front and back covers (which are the same). It took me awhile to balance everything out.
Fiction
I’ve been working on The Madrid Marital Murder Mystery because I’ve a self-imposed deadline: sometime in June. I want to finish it, fashion it into a B6-size book, and give it to a beta reader sometime in June.
I finished it! And it’s no longer B6 but A6 because at A6 it’s 90 pages and 5 signatures of 5 folios each. At B6 it was 60 pages of 3 signatures; and I didn’t do well in making the B6 version, so I made the A6 version and will deliver it to a customer next week! Let’s hear it for the panic of deadlines.
A man is killed. (In the book, not in my life. So far. Fingers crossed.) He’s known to be physically abusive to his wife. The wife is arrested and her lawyer proposes a domestic violence defense. However, Joe and Carmen Marsh discover the wife has also beaten her husband. They also find out something odd in the coroner’s autopsy report. Who was killed? Who killed him? Joe and Carmen want to find out because her brother’s revolver was used in the murder. He’s in legal trouble; a problem that could destroy his business.
Talkies / Flicks
This week I have a silent – as in me not speaking; there is music – video of the creation of a B6-size, 120ish page, notebook with lines on the right page, photos of food on the left page, and covered in book cloth (not a collage). Yes, it’s the book I made in the Bookbinding section of this podcast.
It can be seen here: What is Frérot?
First, I must apologize. I didn’t film the entire construction. I was more worried about casing in the textblock correctly than making sure I filmed it. So, the winner was a proper casing in rather than a viral video. You can still enjoy the music, though.
Books
Still pushing The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street. Please check out one of these fine distributors of digital books to learn how Rie and Nagi spent a night together without being sexually or physically abusive.
Apple 
Barnes & Noble 
Kobo
Saturday May 23, 2026
Saturday May 23, 2026
Bookbinding 
In bookbinding this week we have, for your visual pleasure, a book One Year in the making.
Solaris Libri. This is, I’m assuming, Latin for Solar Book. (If Google translate is accurate with dead languages.)
It is an A6 blank notebook of five signatures of five folios each for a total of 100 pages. The only printing in the entire book is the title pages: Solaris Libri and under that Exposed April 1, 2025; Re-covered April 30, 2026. It has a built-in bookmark that is a silvery yellow as is the cover, of course, to reflect its connection to the sun.
I made it and then taped book board bits to the front and back covers. Then I taped it to my studio window for a year allowing the sun to do its job of fading the uncovered book cloth while keeping the book cloth under the book board bits their original color.
After a year of staring at the sun, I was surprised how little it changed. The band of original book cloth yellow on the back didn’t look too bad. It changed, but not by that much.
Fiction
I’ve been working on two novels. One is quick and short. One is longer and more involved. The first one is The Madrid Marital Murder Mystery. It’s a detective story of a married couple investigating murders in Spain. So far. They might move soon. He’s an American, she’s Spanish.
The second one is Dmitry the Scavenger about a man who finds things when no one is looking and sells them to whoever wants them. His dream is to move to Sicily where it’s warmer and more
relaxing than Moscow.
If you listen to the Tedorigawa Podcast you can hear the first chapter of The Madrid Marital Murder Mystery.
And, yes, I’m still experimenting with cover designs for both books.
Talkies / Flicks / Videos
We have no new flicks to push today, but a brand new one is in the editing stage but it’s just not ready yet.
You can, of course, check out dozens or more of my other videos at Tedorigawa Bookmakers.
Books
Rie, the 36-year-old electrical engineer, and Nagi, the about 80-yer-old retired high school kokugo teacher, randomly met in January and develop their friendship over the course of a year.
Other people involved are Harumi, Rie’s free-spirited co-worker who wants to marry someone and can materialize wherever she wants anytime she wants.
Tadao is also Nagi’s former student and dated Rie. He’s a manga artist who owns a bar where he does his drawing and writing. His mother, Junko, owns the bar where Rie and Nagi often meet. His manga is about the strangers he meets at his bar.
Available at:
Sunday May 17, 2026
Sunday May 17, 2026
Bookbinding
In bookbinding this week we have, for your visual pleasure, the second barf bag book of the month titled: Sumerian Beat Box Tunes (for those who are without sin).
It is seven signatures of four folios each for a total of 112 pages. The right page is lined, the left page is blank. It is B6 in size and link stitched and cased in.
However, unlike most cased in books, this one does not have mull or the paper spine piece. This looks like a regular codex book but opens much nicer and flatter.
The cover includes instructions about how to use 
internet on the plane, my boarding pass with flight number and seat number. Plus, a small photo of the hotel I stayed at. The back has just the vomit bag.
Please note that the interior of the upchuck bag is waterproof so adhering glue to it was not difficult but not as easy as gluing paper.
The book also has black endpapers with a pattern that mirrors the pattern of the 
Waterproof Disposable Bag which for some reason has an International and a Domestic side the only difference being the wifi connection. I suppose if you need to use it as a ‘motion sickness’ bag it doesn’t matter where you’re from.
Fiction
In fiction we have two works in progress. Well, actually more but two this week. (The perennial Caraculiambro is still on hold but not forgotten.)
First, we have Dmitry the Scavenger rolling along quite nicely. He has crossed the Russian and Ukranian borders and veering towards Odessa on his journey to Sicily, or so he thinks.
Naturally, I’m looking for a better cover.
Second, we have The Madrid Marital Murder Mystery, a Marsh Mystery (the third). Carmen and Joe have questions about Rebeso’s neighbor and why Rebeso ran to Símon’s house. Plus, they’ve both been attacked, Carmen seriously. Will she survive?
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 85 Sumerian Beatbox Tunes is up on YouTube for your listening and viewing pleasure. It covers the creation of the book mentioned in the Bookbinding section of this blog.
With commentary about why I did what I did. And possibly why that was not the best idea.
Books
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street.
Rin and Nagi cross paths almost 20 years after Rin graduated from the high school where Nagi tried to teach haiku, tanka, renga, Japanese, and waka.
She’s pushing her company to acknowledge females need more restrooms than males; he’s trying to survive his retirement.
As they meet and talk they discover a connection they never thought they would ever have.
A beta reader commented that they cried at the end because of the depth of Rin and Nagi’s relationship.
Available on:
Saturday May 09, 2026
Saturday May 09, 2026
We are often urged to recycle and reuse. I did just that recently on a quick trip to Hanoi that netted me some Vietnamese paper and three barf bags from the flight over. And back.
Here’s a small tip. Red-eye flights are good when you land in the evening, not so good when you land in the morning.
I made one A6, 100-page, blank notebook with one barf bag with the creative title Bee Creative Now and the subtitle of notebook for inspiration. 
The front page as a small bee. The title page has a large Japanese kanji for bee: 蜂.
It was coptic bound for ease of opening and using the entire page. And for me to practice making coptic-bound books; always a plus.
The back cover has my boarding pass without my name over the barf bag. The front cover reuses only the barf bag (not used, fortunately).
Dmitry the Scavenger has stumbled into both a logistics problem and a name change. The novel starts in Chernobyl which I knew as in Ukraine and Dmitry drives his modified rusty camouflaged military truck full of contraband from Chernobyl to Moscow. Problem: crossing borders (Russia and Ukraine) in the middle of a war between those two countries in a MILITARY TRUCK! A Russian Military Truck! I need to find him another way out of Chernobyl or another abandoned village to ransack.
I also abandoned the Japanese word for scavenger as it was too obscure for even people who can read Japanese. You may reuse it as you wish.
Also in the works: A Marsh Mystery #3 The Madrid Marital Murder Case. Joe and Carmen investigate the murder of an abusive husband whose wife works for Carmen’s brother, Símon, a wealthy owner of a popular Madrid restaurant.
TDGB 84 Scavenge & Morph is available for your visual pleasure. It is the making of the A6 blank notebook discussed in the Bookbinding section of this podcast episode. At 6:20 (minutes, not hours) it is not taxing or tiring; it’s Enjoyable!
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street is eager for your attention, being as it is lonely and on a quiet website (Apple Books is quiet?)
A beta reader came back with the following comments: “Wonderful. Great.” and “I cried at the end.”
Find out what Rin Okabe (former high school student, current electrical engineer) and Nagi Shimeki (retired high school teacher) are doing.
Available almost everywhere (Apple Books, Kobo) except Amazon.
Wednesday Apr 29, 2026
Wednesday Apr 29, 2026
This week we’re looking at a 100-page, A6-size, coptic-bound notebook with lines on the recto (right) side and nothing on the verso (left) side. The main difference 
between this notebook and others is that this book has a collage cover.
I spent several hours combing through a pile of fliers I get in my mailbox, otherwise known as throwaways or direct mail, to find designs, colors, shapes that I can use in the cover. I glued the resulting cutouts to the book board and added a fixative to keep everything in place.
If you check out the Making of Ishikawa Coptic (TDGB 83) on my channel over on YouTube, you can see the page numbers in the middle of the fore-
edge, the lines, the finished collage, and the red thread holding it all together.
By the way, on the cover with the black and white horse, in the lower right hand corner is a partial photo of the symbol of the Kanazawa train station; the Tsuzumi-mon Gate (drum gate).
The novel formerly known as The Russian, has taken on a new title to disuse people from thinking it is pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian. The main character, Dmitry, is neither pro nor anti anything except poverty and hunger; specifically his poverty and his hunger. He’s a scavenger. He finds scraps, bits and pieces, and discarded junk and sells them.
The novel’s new name is Dmitry, Our Kusuya-san. Or maybe without the Our. There are many words for scavenger in Japanese, few of them polite and most meaning something like ‘he’s garbage.’ Kusu is like crumbs or small things you don’t want; Kusuya is a derogatory word similar to ‘he’s garbage.’ But adding San (Mr or Ms) makes it more polite. Kusuya-san is a scavenger in a nice way.
Dmitry scrounges around until he has enough to trade for a truck-load of vodka which he trades, along with the truck it came in, for a free trip to someplace.
First, the video for the making of TDGB 83 The Making of Ishikawa Coptic is up and running on YouTube.
Second, the casing in of TDGB 77 The Battered Briefcase Case is also up for your view pleasure, as are many other bookbinding videos. Feel free to browse.
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street is available on Apple Books for your reading pleasure. A retired Japanese teacher and one of his former high school students meet in Shibuya, Kawasaki, on trains, in coffee shops, and in izakaya where they discuss life, toilets, saké, and the difference between Japanese society’s expectations of men and women.
It is told in 12 chapters each chapter related to a Japanese national holiday. Except June and December which don’t have any national holidays. Each chapter is divided into two parts: First, the thoughts and ideas of the former Japanese teacher until he runs into the former female high school student (now 36 years old). When that happens, the second part concentrates on the female’s thoughts and ideas; it is longer and covers the two main characters’ conversation.
The Battered Briefcase Case: a Marsh Mystery is also available on Apple Books.
A wealthy Seattlite has been arrested for his wife’s murder. He asks Joe Marsh to investigate, hoping to clear his name. Marsh’s investigation leads him to Xativa, Spain where he discovers both the killer and the love of his life (different people).
All this in 45 action-packed, literary pages.
Sunday Apr 19, 2026
Sunday Apr 19, 2026
Bookbinding
I cased in The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street novella. It’s B6 (which is B5 folded in half), nine signatures, and 125 pages. In making this book I discovered a warning I must pass on to my listeners/readers.
Warning: Keep your fingertips away from sharp objects like exacto knives. Exacto knives are frequently used in bookbinding and, from experience, I realize they cut not only paper, but also human flesh. Fortunately, I did not video-tape the incident.
I made a rookie mistake, too. I measured the width of the book cover using the text block but forgot to reduce the width of the book cover by the space of the hinge. This results in the book fore-edge being TOO big.
I used washi probably made in Kanazawa for the book cover. It looks nice but is thin. I needed to be careful not to tear it when folding it or using a bone folder.
Fiction
I tallied up the number of unfinished novels I have padding around my house in their pajamas and tattered bathrobes. To be considered works-in-progress they had to have more than 80 pages; I have many ‘novels’ that have only one or two pages.
The total: four. One is from ten years ago. Is it a work-in-progress or forgotten or abandoned? This is Caraculiambro, of course. The giant of a detective investigating a murder, a death (not related to the murder), and land fraud.
The others include an historical fiction about a woman who lives about 200 years without aging past 40 (The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout); a dystopian future about a man who survives not only war but also the politics of peace and is part four of a trilogy (The Sound of Fear); a happy novel about a dancer who first shows up in Molly Bright but takes center stage with his own novel that takes place in Italy, the Dominican Republic, and Japan but might end in India (Merengue).
Which one do you think I started re-working on in order to get it off my Work-in-Progress pile? That’s right! I started a new novel about a Russian scavenger who collects, gathers, ‘finds’ what he can, sells it for what he can get, and ends up in a strange land (Japan) by mistake. Tentative title: The Russian.
Talkies
I uploaded an eight-minute video of me casing in The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street for your viewing pleasure. Search for or click here: TDGB 82 Warning and Mistakes.
Books
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street is available on Apple Books.
Former Japanese teacher Shimeki Nagi and one of his former high school students, electrical engineer Okabe Rin bump into each other throughout the year on national holidays and random days. They meet, talk about romance, love and life. They learn about each other, and discover an izakaya owner who writes a manga called The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street.
Tuesday Apr 14, 2026
Tuesday Apr 14, 2026
Bookbinding
Aside from finishing a novella (see Fiction, right below), I printed it out to make a physical copy. It’s B6, 125 pages, and includes the Japanese holiday for each month (except June and December which have no holidays) plus other words (also in Japanese).
I made a cover for the first page, sewed the text block together, and made a ten-minute tutorial (see Talkies, below).
Fiction
I finished writing The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street and put it online. It’s about 125 pages in B6 format.
Each chapter has two parts. Part One is with Nagi, the old, retired, divorced Japanese teacher thinking about life, and stops when he runs into Rin, his former student.
Part Two is Rin thinking about her life, and continues after she meets up with Nagi.
There are 12 chapters, one for each month of the year. For more about the book, see Books, below.
Talkies
A video tutorial for sewing before casing in. At YouTube TDGB 81: Sewing. About ten minutes.
Books
My novella, The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street, is available on Apple Books and other online sites. A fifteen-page chapter is free for your reading pleasure.
Rin Okabe, a 36-year-old single electrical engineer working for an architectural office, runs into her old (really, he's almost 80), divorced, Japanese high school teacher, Nagi Shimeki. They meet at random places that neither plan until finally they agree to meet. At first, they are cautious as to why they keep meeting, but gradually learn to enjoy each other’s company.
Other characters include the flirtatious Harumi, the mangaka Tadao, the bar owner Junko, the supervisor Horiguchi, and the unnamed bucho. There’s a touch of magical realism, but mostly life in Kawasaki is grounded in loneliness and separation.
Sunday Apr 05, 2026
Sunday Apr 05, 2026
Bookbinding
Not truly amazing, but nothing this week. I got involved in a gardening project and tuckered myself out. Hopefully, more to come next week.
Fiction
I finished the first draft of The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street. But immediately found or thought of some changes that need to be made. Please remember that there are 12 chapters for each month of the year.
• First change: A character is introduced in February but doesn’t show up again until November. I want to make him a little more memorable in February so readers will remember him in November. Also, he owns an izakaya and writes manga. His manga hasn’t been published yet, but the two main characters think it is really good. The name of his manga is The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street. Yes, it’s basically his izakaya.
• Second change: Add a bit more loneliness to the two main characters. Tokyo can be very lonely. Also, the main female character wants to quit her job, which she doesn’t like, move back to her hometown in Fukushima, and open her own design shop. That is going to be a major rewrite.
• Two more changes. ❶ Set up a disease one character gets. Right now it is just sprung on the reader. I’d like it to build gradually. ❷ Humanize a jerk; one character dates someone because he’s handsome and rich but discovers he’s a jerk. So far, in the first draft, the jerk is just a jerk. I plan to make him a little bit more human. Still a jerk, but more human.
I want to finish this novel soon; at least finish draft 2. And make a cover for it.
Talkies
Please check out the videos already up on my YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure. While there is nothing new this week, you can still enjoy watching your videos.
Sunday Mar 29, 2026
Sunday Mar 29, 2026
Bookbinding
A smaller version of the larger Benengeli’s Zuihitsu. The title combines two important books: Don Quixote (1605) and The Pillow Book (1002). Cervantes claimed the Benengeli wrote Don Quixote. Sei Shonagon wrote The Pillow Book which someone called a zuihitsu.
The smaller version is A6 in size with 9 signatures of four folios each and 144 pages (versus the five signature of five folios each, 80-page larger version).
Fiction
After finishing Benengeli’s Zuihitsu and The Dry Watermill Case, I continued working on The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street. Perhaps the name will be changed to either The Lonely Izakaya or Kajigaya Sakaba. Why? Because the longer title sounds like a Japanese version of a young adult novel (called a light novel in Japan).
My favorite light novel title is I Want to Eat Your Pancreas written by Yoru Sumino and made into a manga, anime, and live action flick as is often the case with popular light novels.
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street is in its eighth month. There are two parts to each month. Part One is the former student’s (Rin) thoughts and life. Part Two is the former teacher’s (Shimeki) thoughts and life. Part Two concludes when the interaction between the student and teacher starts in Part One.
There is also a bit of magical realism included. One of Rin’s co-workers can teleport through space; no one comments on it. Rin can move things with her mind, often to her unintended detriment.
There is also a running argument between Rin and her supervisor about the number of toilets in a female restroom vs the number of toilets and urinals in a male restroom.
Aside from The Lonely Izakaya (which sounds too much like a subsidiary of the travel books The Lonely Planet, doesn’t it?), I started another Marsh Mystery (short private detective stories) titled: The Madrid Murder Case. More on that in the future; if it pans out.
Talkies
For your audio and visual entertainment, we have Benengeli’s Zuihitsu The Smaller Version up on YouTube. Plus other videos you might enjoy. Please check them out, subscribe, and tell your friends.
Sunday Mar 22, 2026
Sunday Mar 22, 2026
Bookbinding
Last episode I cased in Our Truckin’ Book but the book boards splayed out as if I had cut them perpendicular to the grain rather than with the grain. This episode, I tore off the cover and repaired it with the proper grain. But the same book cloth so it looks similar.
This week I printed out two copies of Benengeli’s Zuihitsu. One is A5 and one is A6. This week, I cased in the A5 version.
With one experiment that isn’t so experimental except for me. I sliced off the fore edge and I liked it. It made it easier to measure the text block which made it easier to accurately measure the covers. Very useful, although I like the deckle fore edge look as well.
The book cover looks like Italian terracotta roof shingles, the endpapers are a light green, the thread is red, and there’s a colorful chiyogami accent on the front of the book to differentiate it from the back of the book. Clever, no?
It has five signatures and 84 printed pages with five blank pages pulling up the end.
Fiction
Two books were completed this episode. First, Benengeli’s Zuihitsu. A zuihitsu is from the Japanese of the Heian Era (about 1,000 years ago) meaning Following the Brush. Writing whatever the writer wanted to write about. It was coined for Sei Shonagon who wrote The Pillow Book about her life in the Heian court.
Benengeli’s Zuihitsu is similar; writing about anything that fits his fancy, including that Benengeli is mentioned in Don Quixote by Cervantes (written about 400 years ago).
Second, The Dry Watermill Case, a Marsh Mystery. In this episode, Joe and Carmen solve a murder in Seville, Spain and anger some powerful people, so they have to escape to Madrid.
Talkies
Episode 79 Zuihitsu Large is up and enjoying itself and hoping you can join it. Like zuihitsu in general, it talks about making the book, shopping, music, and new, to me, innovations in bookbinding.