Episodes
Tuesday Mar 05, 2013
Episode 100: This Is Life ~ Harwood
Tuesday Mar 05, 2013
Tuesday Mar 05, 2013
Many many moons ago I received an e-book of Seth Harwood's This Is Life (a Jack Palms novel). Also many moons ago I printed it out and sewed it together. I also lined the spine. Then I set it on my pile of To Bind Naked books and went about my life. For a long time. Last week I managed to print out a cover and bind the whole shebang together.
The book is about 165 pages, A5 in size, hardback, and with a blue book cloth running down the spine. The cover paper is thick. It is from Strathmore and stiff. The photo was pulled off the internet and dropped into InDesign where the whole cover was arranged, rearranged, and finally printed out. The endpapers are plain brown which, if I were to do this over again, I would make metallic grey or have a red car door with bullet holes in it (you have to read the book).
What did we learn from this excursion? This is a series of bindings I've been working on to improve my binding experience. The others were the half-bound notebooks (Seen below in Episode 99) and a smaller blank notebook, also half-bound. I'm teaching myself how to put on a spine separate from the cover and to add the corners. What I learned from This Is Life is to make the paper cover slightly larger (about 2~5 mm) than needed so that it fits nicely under the book cloth. Again, measuring accuracy is important.
Monday Dec 03, 2012
Episode 92: Dos Dos-a-Dos
Monday Dec 03, 2012
Monday Dec 03, 2012
After having made my first (primero) double book, I decided to give it another shot; try again, so to speak. The first one came out good so why not, eh? This second (segundo, or in Arabic: ثان) double book is made up of misprints and mistakes from making the previous 2013 schedule books which can be seen below in Episode 90.
The Red Side is made up of ten signatures of five sheets each for 200 pages. It comes with Chinese lettering on the cover and a reddish orange bookmark. And a picture of Cai Lun - inventor of paper circa 105 AD.
The Yellow Side is made up of ten signatures as well for about 200 pages making the combined book a total of 400 pages. It also has a yellow bookmark and random pictures of Kanazawa.
What do we take away from this exploration into bookmaking? First, making dos-a-dos was not as difficult as I first thought. Intimidation was my main stumbling block which, upon reflection, causes many a person to stumble.
Second, these types of books were often used for double novels, especially science fiction, in the past. I think they'd make for easier reading than as a blank journal. They're a bit cumbersome to write in.
All-in-all a good experience that I enjoyed having but I doubt I'll make more unless I have a novel or two to print and sell. (Hint, hint: Tristram'sPrinter and The Venetian Slime Woman - both available at Smashwords.com for reasonable prices: $2.99 and $1.99, respectively.)
See you next week with two more 2013 Schedule Books!
Coming Soon to Smashwords - Calvado: A Deadly Love Story
Tuesday Sep 04, 2012
Episode 88: Naked Books and A New Novel
Tuesday Sep 04, 2012
Tuesday Sep 04, 2012
Naked Books
Last weekend I was taught, I didn't learn it yet, three-needle coptic binding. It seems to require less thread. Is that possible? And it looks complicated but it really isn't once you get started. Previously in the year I learned two-needle coptic binding which is a third easier than three-needle binding. In the last couple of days I sewed three books using either two- or three-needle coptic binding. On the left you can see the three books. From the Top we have: Blank Notebook with about 180 pages, A5 in size (pocketbook), all white pages. In the Middle we have: An Odd Assortment of papers, about 180 pages, all A5 in size. The papers are leftovers, misprints, and test prints from my 2013 Diary/Calendar book. Rather than throw them all away, I decided to upcycle them into a memo pad. On the bottom we have: a 2013 Diary A5 in size, about 140 pages, with a bookmark (more on this when it's finished.) These three books will probably be casebound either today or tomorrow, I hope. Here are the front of the three books. From the left are the 2013 Diary, the Blank Notebook, and the Odd Assortment memo pad. The logo on the Odd Assortment is a test print for the 2013 Diary's last page. The 2013 Diary has a tail, as you can see, which is actually a bookmark. All of these fit in your back pocket. Not at once. Unless you have extra deep pockets.A New Novel
In the past few years I have written a few (5) novels, all love stories. Two are available on Smashwords.Com.
The first one is The Venetian Slime Woman: A Biological Love Story. It's about an EPA water specialist who stumbles into and feels compelled to protect a strange unearthly woman from the Department of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security wants to capture her, experiment on her, and find out what makes her tick. Why? Because she is of a species that grows from slime mould and learns by osmosis. In theory, they can never die. If a human touches the mould before it evolves into a human-like form, they die. If Homeland Security gets her, the Venetian Slime Woman will die.
It takes place in Venice, Seattle, the American midwest, and St. Augustine, Florida.
The reason I'm talking about it here is that I have bound a couple of copies. Smashwords.com is a good place to find and buy ebooks for your Kindle, iPad, or computer. If you like one of my books you can order a real copy - casebound or coptic - from me.
Next week: Tristram's Printer: A Typographical Love Story.
Tuesday May 08, 2012
Episode 79: The Idiot Runs
Tuesday May 08, 2012
Tuesday May 08, 2012
The Idiot Runs is my latest novel. It's about a Oregon coast man who travels back in time to Venice in the 16th century to work with Nicolas Jenson, printer, binder, and typeface creator of the Roman font.
I wrote, edited, imposed, printed, sewed, and slapped a case binding on it. There are 160 pages of eight signatures of five sheets each. The book is bound in a tan burlapy book cloth with Japanese-esque endpapers (resembling mompei, discussed in Episode 75 when we were talking about another novel: The Priests of Hiroshima) with brown paper attached to the front.
The book is B6 in size - a handy pocket-sized book if you have slightly larger than normal pockets. And, surprisingly, it went together quite well over a period of a couple of days. Not the writing and editing. That took quite a bit longer. On the first evening, I sewed the signatures up. The next evening, after a leisurely dinner, I glued the spine, mull, and that extra strip of paper to the spine. On the third evening, I cut and pasted the endpapers; cut and pasted the cover and assembled the whole thing together. The third evening took about an hour. I wasn't rushed during the whole process and only made a couple of mistakes but nothing I need to point out here.
By the way, The Idiot Runs is the first book in my Calvado Pentalogy which contains the following books: The Idiot Runs, Calvado, The Priests of Hiroshima, The Venetian Slime Woman, and Tristram's Printer. Certain characters and situations show up in all five novels but not always blatantly obvious. If you're familiar with Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet you might recognize the structure in The Calvado Pentalogy.
Upon finishing this and putting it on my improvised book press, I looked at my work table and discovered I have seven more projects to finish up. Seven! And where might I find the time to do them all? Heaven knows, eh?
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
Episode 78: Yellow Clamshells
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
This last weekend I went to a craft fair where I ate a nice taco-flavored rice dish. I also, not at the craft fair, made a yellow clamshell box for one of my novels (a re-covered Tristram's Printer - first mentioned back in Episode 50). The novel is actually in two parts. Part one is my novel and part two is the first book of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. The first book is probably the most read part of Tristram Shandy as it is difficult to get through. Not your average Tom Clancy novel, let me tell you.
Tristram's Printer is about a young woman who learns about papermaking, printing, and bookbinding and falls in Love with a Printer who fantasizes about printing the typographically challenging Tristram Shandy. She is about 25, he is about 50. Characters in Tristram's Printer make an appearance in The Idiot Runs, a time-slipping 2010 Oregon coast to 1462 Venice, Italy bookbinding/printing novel I am currently editing.
This clamshell box (夫婦箱 - me otto bako, in Japanese. Literally: husband-wife box. 夫 is husband while 婦 is wife.) is my first. It is covered in yellow paper instead of book cloth and that was a mistake. It is already tearing at the hinge. My next clamshell box, coming up in a couple of weeks, will be covered in book cloth. The most challenging and worrisome bits are the measuring, cutting, gluing, and putting together the shell. Almost everything about it is worrisome to some extent.
Always in the back of my mind is the possibility that it won't fit together properly. In fact, the first attempt didn't because of a mis-measurement. This, while the first completed clamshell box, was renovated during construction as the first attempt had the two boxes colliding.
Clamshell boxes: they're not for the squeamish.
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Episode 75: The Priests of Hiroshima
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story is my novel about time travel between an Istanbul antique bookstore today and Mainz, Germany when Gutenberg was in full operation. Istanbul and Mainz, Germany. What do they have to do with Hiroshima?
The Priests of Hiroshima is the name of a novel in the novel The Priests of Hiroshima. In my novel it is a novel printed and signed by Gutenberg. How did the author in 1453 know about the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945? You gotta read The Priests of Hiroshima.
Back in 1945 when Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, some priests were in their church. The blast blew most everything away except for some of the strengthened walls of the church. One priest (Father Hubert Schiffer), after the bombing, was bathed from head to foot to clean his wounds. The walls protected him feeling the brunt of the blast while the bathing cleansed him of any radiation. Or it was a miracle. Fr. Schiffer was from Germany, perhaps Mainz?
My The Priests of Hiroshima is about 112 pages, casebound, with Japanese paper as the cover. The design is reminiscent of old-fashioned farmer women's clothes known as mompei. There are seven signatures of four sheets. There is, in Japanese tradition, a strip of washi on the front cover. The title is supposed to be written vertically on this strip of paper but I haven't the calligraphical chops to do it right. It has yellow craft paper as endpapers.
This is the second edition of the book. The first one can be seen here: Episode 60: Red Kanji. You can read the first 23 chapters here: The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story from 1453 to 2007.Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
Episode 73: The Eddie Trombone Case
Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
A friend is writing an online novel called Teach Yourself Japanese: The Eddie Trombone Case. Or it might be completely true. True or false, fact or fiction, I was looking for content to practice imposition, binding, casing in, and the other particulars of bookbinding. Viola, a marriage made online. I copied his online scribblings, did a little desktop publishing magic, imposed it, printed it out (which took close to a half-century to finish - Gutenberg had it easy), and did a link stitch before casing it in with a sort of ersatz Chinese motif cover.
• About the Book Part One There are six signatures of four sheets each for 96 pages. It is B6 in size and I really messed up the first time I cased it in. I forgot to push the text block up tight against the spine and it came out loose and messy. After I tossed it across the studio and shoved it in the recycle bin, I relaxed. Then I tore it apart and re-bound it. It came out better when I was relaxed.
• About "the Book" Part Two What, you might ask, is the story about? An American in Japan by the name of Eddie Trombone is missing. A consulate officer at the Osaka consulate, Gerard K. Dirkins, is charged with finding him. His efforts lead him to a book Eddie took out of the Chicago library called "Teach Yourself Japanese" and a diary kept by Mr. Trombone. From Eddie's diary, we follow his life from Chicago to Osaka and witness the many frustrations as Dirkins tries to understand Eddie's frustrating "new" and exciting (?) life in Japan. Will he ever find Eddie? Is Eddie still alive? More importantly, will "Teach Yourself Japanese" ever be returned to the Chicago public library? This book, which I have made in an edition of three (two to the author, one for me), is titled "Teach Yourself Japanese: the Eddie Trombone Case, Part 1" because the online novel is not, as far as I know, finished yet. Plus, I am currently working on "Teach Yourself Japanese: the Eddie Trombone Case, Part 2." Second, you might ask, is why is the green part of the book so big? Well, when I tossed it across the room? I kind of ripped part of the cover which was mostly the fake Chinese red part. And, I, uh, kind of had to cover up the tears. Maybe this will be the copy I keep for myself. In retrospect, rather than a hard cover, I think I should have made it a softcover because it is only 96 pages. Kind of thin, but when Part 2 comes out, I might try a dos a dos.Tuesday Oct 04, 2011
Celebrating 100 Books, Kind of
Tuesday Oct 04, 2011
Tuesday Oct 04, 2011
According to my logs, I have made 100 books. Admittedly, most of them are less than stellar performances. I mean, I stapled my first book after the duct tape didn't work out. Some of these books have been ripped apart and re-built. Some of them have been put on a back shelf near the gates of Hell.
But all of them were part of my aspiration at getting better at making these little rascals. My 100th book was a Japanese-style bound book of quotes about The Future - "The Future Belongs to the People who Prepare for It ~ African Proverb" - with nifty Japanese paper. (Picture's upside down, duh). Before that, I made a couple of casebound books which are much better than even I expected them to be.
Also according to my Book Book (the first book I made, with a cardboard cover and very badly made Japanese stab binding, where I keep a record of the books I've made so I can enter posts on my blog), I've been aspiring to improve my bookbinding skills since January, 2007. Four+ years. A very good four years of learning, thinking, improving, and progressing, I think, nicely. In another couple of decades I might even be confident. Especially when it comes to gluing in the endpapers. Slam, shut the cover and hope its aligned properly.
I'm looking forward to improving. I hope I do. I'm looking forward to being able to create a book that will be around for a century. Wouldn't that be great? To know something you've made will be around much longer than you?
Thanks for listening & reading this blog. See you next time.
Friday Oct 01, 2010
Episode 54: Workflow
Friday Oct 01, 2010
Friday Oct 01, 2010
I was daydreaming during an important work-related meeting and got to thinking about the workflow of making books. Then I started organizing my workflow. Since I don't bind books full-time, I need to separate the different stages of binding in order to make maximum efficient use of my time. Here is what I've got working for me now.
First, I cut and fold the signatures, then I sew them. In the past four days I've sewn four blank notebooks that I plan to casebound. Next, I measure and cut the book boards, although I'm thinking of buying a supply of pre-cut boards just to save some time. The two things I don't have are time and space. Third, I glue the mull on the books and the book cloth to the book boards, thus I have an entire stage of production dedicated to using glue. My fourth step is to glue the book boards to the signatures without screwing up the endpapers. This is a challenge. The main challenge.
This is a relaxing way to make books, I think. In the evenings, instead of vegging out in front of the boob tube, I click on 'classical' on iTunes radio and sew signatures together with Mozart. Well, he's not actually sewing signatures with me. After a frustrating day at work, this is a nice way to relax. Plus, by sewing just one book a day, in five days I have five books. Better, I think, than cramming it all into one marathon sewing day. In the picture above right, you can see six books ready for their covers: four blank B6-size notebooks (on top) and two A5-size novels: The Priests of Hiroshima - A Modern Love Story From 1453 to 2007 by me and This is Life - A Jack Palms Novel by Seth Harwood. This Is Life has its mull already attached - it has been in the production process for quite some time and I hope to finish it this month. (Wishful thinking, eh?) On your right is another view with the novels open and the four blank notebooks providing moral and physical support. You probably can't see any of the words of these two great novels, but mine is on the left and Harwood's is on the right. I think. This Is Life is a crime/mystery novel. It's the second part of the Jack Palms series with Jack Wakes Up being part one. You can see more of his work, and download free audio, from his website: http://sethharwood.com/ The Priests of Hiroshima is a time-traveling love story between a priest in 1453 and a book shop clerk and a parallel love story between a medical student who has been suspended for practicing medicine and a Japanese tourist. They all meet in an ancient book shop in Istanbul - meaning both the books are old and the shop is old, too. This is part two of the medical student's story with Calvado: A Deadly Love Story being the first (a murder/what's going on novel). Both are available in one handy volume on this very site. For a pittance- considering it's a one of a kind book.Thanks for dropping by. See you next week.
New Audio is Now Up. Enjoy, especially if you like steampunk sounds.
Thursday Jun 03, 2010
Dragonfly Novel
Thursday Jun 03, 2010
Thursday Jun 03, 2010
Hi, how ya doin'? Let me show you my latest - and quickest - bookbinding, er, extravaganza:
The Dragonfly Book
This is actually a novel written by Seth Harwood called This Is Life. I quickly bound two other copies of the same novel earlier and if you page down, you can probably see them. As you can see the border between the blue dragonfly cloth and the black spine cloth is screwed up. Why? Because I moved too fast and didn't pay attention to what I was doing. But I needed the book quickly and didn't have the time. Again, haste made waste - I especially feel upset that I wasted the dragonfly cloth; it's pretty and deserved a better application. In my feeble defense, this book is for me and for reading pleasure so there's no actual problem except to my pride. I am now working on a better - slower - more accurate - version. Hopefully, with the extra time and slower pace, the end result will feed my ego (it has been starved as of late.)
The book has nine signatures, sewn nicely together with a few blank pages at the back. Then casebound with the dragonfly cloth I found in a flea market for about 50 US cents. I backed the cloth with thin paper and glued it nicely around the book boards - forgetting about the border twixt black and blue. The black cloth is also hand-backed by myself - it is from an earlier project. Here is what This Is Life looks like opened up: dragonfly on the front, black on the back. It is A5 in size using copy paper and 162 pages, not including a couple of blank pages.
New audio is up and vocal.
Thanks for coming by.