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8 min
Bookbinding
This is a 125-page, seven signature work of fiction. It’s A6 (pocketbook) in size with a leftover file as a book board and recycled (up?cycled) text block from a pile of almost-A6 size paper I got from a printing company about 12 years ago. This pile is quickly dwindling as I haven’t purchased A6-size paper recently.
I must confess it is not strictly A6 (pocketbook) but slightly off. It’s a bit taller and wider, but not by much. This would have been something to remember when I made the book boards as I cut the boards to fit a ‘real’ A6-size text block.
This required me to trim off the fore-edge and struggle to make the book cloth fit.
I did, however, print the title on the front. Next time, I’ll attempt to print the title on the spine. The next time will be soon, as I want to change the typography, line spacing, and font size.
Fiction
Two works-in-progress this week. The first one is Dmitry the Scavenger. He has been in Italy for six years; making money, working, enjoying life but missing Rin and all the others in Noto, Japan.
But he has arrived in Japan. He and Rin have connected. They are aware their relationship might have run its course. Neither wants to be the first to admit it, but I suspect Dmitry will say something.
While writing, I got an idea. This idea will require more writing time. The idea is to have a Russian tax agent pursue Dmitry to the ends of the earth. Dmitry knows the agent is looking for him and sends him conflicting signals as to where he is. Will Alexei catch the scavenger?
The second work-in-progess isn’t so much a WIP as a completed work. It is The Frappuccino Øracles – the fiction produced in the Bookbinding section.
The Frappuccino Øracles has seven sections each featuring a female character who, by coincidence, meets a stranger to share a life with. A minor character in one section becomes the major character in another section. How the two characters overlap is in both of their sections but they never talk to each other.
For example, in one section, a hairdresser student who works part-time in a coffee shop has to interact with an angry customer and her passed-out drunk friend. When the angry customer leaves the coffee shop, the hairdresser calls the EMTs. She and one of the EMTs hit it off. They both: want to work in Italy, study Italian, set the date for moving to Italy at three months, and like beaches. The EMT invites her out for a frappuccino.
Meanwhile, in another section, the angry customer stomps through a park, hails a cab, and learns she and the driver share a common interest in wanting to be professional shogi players. They agree to a match and talk of the future.
As she marches through the park, a man is playing music on his computer with earbuds in and another woman is sitting in the park on a different bench. She sees he’s playing music. She likes to sing. They strike up a conversation.
Before that, the man playing music is in a coffee shop when a woman sits at the next table. She starts talking to herself. He decides she might be crazy, so he leaves to compose music in the park.
The woman talking to herself is worried she’s going crazy. She hears a voice. It says one word. On her way to work, her shoelace breaks and she can only buy one that doesn’t match the color she wants. At her workplace elevator, a man sees her shoes and says the word the woman has been hearing. They strike up a conversation.
And so it goes for six of the seven sections.
One section deals with a woman who might be suicidal but is definitely stricken with a mental problem, which she hides well. In the elevator, the man who speaks with the shoelace woman talks to her; simple conversation for a relationship that ended months earlier.
Complicated but entertaining, I hope.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 108, the making of The Frappuccino Øracles is on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.
How I adjust binding a text block I thought was A6 but is an oddly shaped cast off paper from a printing press.
It includes a Bonus Section with tools made for bookbinding: spacers, templates, and skewers (as seen holding food together in izakayas).
Books
We have two books for your reading pleasure to talk about today.
First, of course, is The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street. A 30-something electrical engineer meets her retired high school Japanese teacher at bars and restaurants. They discuss haiku, her past as a student, his past as a dutiful son, their lives, and the lack of female restrooms in public places (her specialty).
Available on Apple Books.
The other more recently published book is The Frappuccino Øracles. Who can stop a lonely Tokyo life?
Strangers in Tokyo collide with other strangers but neither knows what is going on. In most cases, love ensues. Also, a ghost or two.
Available soon on Apple Books.
Apple 
Barnes & Noble 
Kobo Nov 2, 2026
Nov 2, 2026
4 min
Bookbinding
I was given a lot of postcards from all over the known world to use as I saw fit for my bookbinding practice. First thing I did, I don’t know why, is put them in groups by theme: travel, artsy, by country.
I took four related postcards: travel cards from four different cities (two American and two Canadian).
After printing 80 and 100 pages of lined paper and graphic paper, I folded them, pierced them with an awl, and sewed them together using the Coptic stitch.
The Canadian books (Terrace & Edmonton) are five signatures for 100 pages.
The American books (Philadelphia & New York) are four signatures for 80 pages.
Both are, coincidentally, A6 (pocketbook) in size. These are the largest postcards I’ve gotten.
I have more A6-size postcards that I can make into blank notebooks with graphic paper & lines, or something else. With the small postcards, they will have to be something else. We will see what they will become in the future
Fiction
Dmitry and Rin are in Japan. They are dancing around their relationship: will it survive? will it end? They aren’t sure; both want it to survive and both realize they have changed, Rin more than Dmitry.
In the six years they haven’t been on the same continent, Rin has gotten a degree in architecture, gotten a job in Kawasaki, and is living alone, working, and working some more.
Dmitry is still scavenging jobs in Sicily, but he has an Italian passport. As they talk, they realize something has happened to their relationship; they don’t know what as of yet.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 107 Going Postal (about the making of the two blank notebooks discussed in the Bookbinding section above) is available for your viewing pleasure.
Books
Rin Okabe in this book is related to the Rin Okabe in Dmitry The Scavenger; terribly closely related. They are the same person. But this is not a series. They are two independent (like Rin) books that stand on their own.
If you were to read both, you might enjoy how Rin ended up as an architect, where she came from, and about her family. Nice, eh?
Oct 18, 2026
Oct 18, 2026
5 min
Bookbinding
An A6-size, 120-page blank notebook made with more leftovers. This explains the rhinoceros on the back cover. A left over rhino. Hmm. I live near the Rhino River (Sai-gawa) in Kanazawa so maybe that explains it.
All of it is leftover material. Except the thread. From the text block to the cover.
The name came from me thinking of two things that don’t relate to each other much. Fierce and Butterfly came to mind. What was this
Lepidoptera doing? Stalking people. What kind of people? Lovers, of course.
In the course of making this book, I made a mistake that seems oddly familiar: I punched the holes in one signature incorrectly. Similar to the mistake I made two weeks ago.
Careful is not my middle name.
Fiction
A fiction writer, having writ, doesn’t move on so much as re-read what they have written. And go back and change it.
I had a marginal inspiration smack me aside the head so I changed some things in chapter 1 to make a few minor characters stronger in chapter 22.
In Chapter 22 Dmitry meets three females characters. Like the three witches in MacBeth (Shakespeare). In Chapter 1 I added a scene where Dmitry finds a photo of three females. He mentions that their happy life in Chernobyl was snatched away from them by the meltdown in 1986. Two foreshadowings: one, Dmitry will meet three women in Japan and he will have his comfortable life disrupted by Japanese law.
The end result, I think (but I’m biased), is a stronger, more cohesive novel. And more pages.
Books
From a reviewer:
“Engaging and inspiring read! Culturally brilliant! Set in Japan, this humanely-raw and sensitive Japanese story captivates with its generous use of peculiar figurative language. Its vivid imagery juxtaposed against masterful and fateful coincidences leaves the reader feeling optimistic that, even in an increasingly sophisticated technical age in the 3rd most populous city in the world, human connection prevails.”
Available on Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. Links below.
Oct 10, 2026
Oct 10, 2026
7 min
Bookbinding
A few years ago, maybe five, I wrote a novel called Abacus Longing. It’s about the relationship five people have with an alien with four arms. And the FBI training to arrest her. The friends are her physicist friend, a computer program designer and her boss, and a math wiz and her manga-ka friend.
Recently I gave the book to a friend and while taking 
transportation to his city, I leafed through it, saw – as many writers do – saw things I wanted to change. I made the changes and bound the book again.
It is 160 pages, B6, and strangely bound together. My original idea was a French link stitch; made two mistakes, and opted to case it in to hide my mistakes. One mistake was looping through too many signatures (not a major problem). The second mistake was punching the holes in one signature backwards from the others. As the holes were not symmetrical, that required me to punch in more holes which make the French link stitch ugly so I decided to add a spine and case it in as if it were a real book. The final (ha!) mistake was not aligning the title on the spine correctly; it hovers into the hinge gap.
Fiction
Dmitry has been arrested by Japanese immigration. He has fooled them into thinking he is Ukrainian (not Russian). His lawyer convinced Immigration to deport him to Italy. He is now in Italy. With a surprise guest who can only stay in Italy for two weeks.
He has a job as a janitor and he suspects his lawyer has ties with gangsters in Italy and in Japanese Immigration or that he bribed someone somewhere.
I noticed I misspelled scrivener. I was thinking scribe while typing scrivener so I came up with scribener. I changed it.
Talkies / Flicks
In YouTube we have TDGB 103 up for your viewing pleasure. I describe the three mistakes and explain why one is ignored, one is unchangeable,
and one is fixed.
Book
This novel of a relationship between a retired Japanese teacher and one of his students is available at Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Rakuten.
One reviewer called it Sensitive and Lovely while another said he cried at the end.
Sep 28, 2026
Sep 28, 2026
4 min
Bookbinding
The Bomber & Life’s Been Good To Me So Far.
In the late 60’s the James Gang had a few hits one of which was the 1970 hit: The Bomber, containing the sentence “Apple Dan is just the man to pick the fruit off your branches” which is the title of my 140-page, A6-size, blank notebook built with mostly leftovers from my To-Be-Used-in-this-century pile. Except for the thread which has never been used.
The second and last of the James Gang series sports the 1978 title: Life’s Been Good to Me So Far, by the guitarist of the James Gang long after he left the James Gang and was guitarist for The Eagles (writing, among others, Hotel California).
Fiction
Dmitry the Scavenger. He is in jail even though the police officer who arrested him doesn’t think he deserves to be in jail.
The lawyer thinks he knows a way out but it might come with a five or ten year ban from ever entering Japan again; that’s not the threat the Japanese government thinks it is.
As Dmitry grew up in Russia and has to deal with bureaucrats, he’s doing his best not to irritate the correctional facility officers, none of whom speak Russian or Ukrainian, but some speak English.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 101 - What Can Apple Dan Do? & TDGB 102 -Life’s Been Good To Me So Far.
Both show how I make blank notebooks including using leftover material as much as possible.
Books
- The Battered Briefcase Case (Marsh Mystery #1). A murderer evaporates to Spain where Marsh seeks her out. But discovers love.
- The Dry Watermill Case (Marsh Mystery #2). Marsh & Carmen open up a closed case only to discover their lives in danger.
- The Madrid Mariposa Murder Mystery (Marsh Mystery #3). Domestic violence leads to a murder. And a switch and bait corpse.
The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street
A review from a reader on Barnes & Noble:
Engaging and inspiring read! Culturally brilliant! Set in Japan, this humanely-raw and sensitive Japanese story captivates with its generous use of peculiar figurative language.
Sep 19, 2026
Sep 19, 2026
8 min
Bookbinding
A link-stitched, 140-page, B6-sized blank notebook has been created with a grey-blue cover, and a black spine. It also has photos of friends as it is being mailed to those friends.
Left-overs used in this book include the book boards (file), black spine (purchased years ago; perhaps a decade or more), and the endpapers (envelop).
Fiction
The Dmitry in Dmitry the Savenger has helped many people in the small town where he washed up in Japan: elderly people, teens, single moms, and others. Unfortunately for him, he has been arrested for being in Japan without a visa of any kind.
Surprisingly, if enough people vouch for the safety and need for Dmitry, his fine and/or imprisonment will be less than if he were a criminal. However, immigration has only very rarely (i.e., never) been persuaded by Japanese citizens to allow an illegal immigrant to stay. Currently, Dmitry is in a prison designed for illegal immigrants.
A few changes I want to make: make it seem that Rin and Dmitry are going to fall in love; but they are not. A delicate balance between innocent flirting and obviousness.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 100 is up and running for your viewing pleasure. The main purpose of this video was to show the link stitch. Unwisely for me, I used yellow thread against a yellowish background so it is hard to see. I narrate how to start a link stitch but a visual is always important.
Another item you might learn about is the bookbinder’s knot. I attempted to film it and I narrate it; tell me if it was successful.
Finally, we talk about the hinge gap which is usually about 8 mm. Not so in this book.
Books
- Sakate – A female bartender deals with a variety of alcoholic customers throughout the evening.
- The Dead of Winter – A famous novelist dies and goes to Kanazawa where he meets a coffee shop owner who berates him about his writing.
- The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street – a retired high school Japanese teacher runs into one of his former students. They strike up a relationship based on haiku and drinking. Also available on Barnes & Noble.
Sep 13, 2026
Sep 13, 2026
7 min
Bookbinding
Hakui is a small town about 25 miles (40 km) north of Kanazawa. On August 27 it had a massive rainfall. It was severely flood with the water reaching up to the middle of people’s front doors, over the tops of cars, and caused a few landslides. Fortunately, nobody died.
In their honor, I made a book called Hakui. It is a thin book - four signatures of four leaves each for a total of 64 pages. It is B6 in size and cased in.
The cover is made up of left-over material: red book cloth, pink paper (part of the cover) and blue paper (the spine). Also embellished on the front cover is a leaf, leftover endpaper, and an interesting washi. This washi is thin; individual threads can be seen. It looks like a spider web.
Fiction
Dmitry the Scavenger continues toward his confrontation with government employees.
Before his confrontation, he works with the people of Noto-machi. He repairs houses, and other items that need repairing, cleans up gardens, and helps whenever he can.
This will come in handy when he deals with the government.
Books
I have three Marsh Mysteries up. These are short (50~70 pages) detective stories with Joe & Carmen Marsh investigating murders, domestic abuse, and fraud in Spain.
- The Battered Briefcase Case (A murder sends Marsh to Spain to find the murderer. In Xativa),
- The Madrid Mariposa Murder Mystery (A woman is abused by her husband and finds a clever way to murder him. In Madrid), and
- The Dry Watermill Case (A cold case comes back to life when a corpse is found. In Seville ).
The Saké Series is also available for your reading pleasure.
- Sakate (a bartender deals with a variety of customers),
- The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street (a former high school teacher meets and drinks with a former high school student), and
- The Dead of Winter (a famous Japanese novelist dies and goes to Kanazawa).
Be forewarned, I have another book in the Saké Series called My Year of Drinking Kanazawa in which an ex-pat novelist living in Kanazawa goes to different bars and learns about life in Kanazawa. Hopefully, this will be available soon.
Aug 31, 2026
Aug 31, 2026
8 min
Bookbinding
Hog Heaven was sewn on tapes. Probably the second time I’ve sewn on tapes in a long, long time.
The signatures (7) were connected by sewing the upper signature through the threads on each station on the lower signatures.
This made for a fairly tight connection between the signatures.
Hog Heaven was also sewn twice. The first time, I didn’t put the thread through the lower station thread – not a bad thing but not what I
planned. I was on the fifth signature when I noticed. I pulled out all the sewing I had done and resewed it.
The second thing that changed, other than the resewing, was I used a straight needle. Usually I use a curved needle, but in this case I think a straight needle was more affective.
Because it kept the signatures together very tightly, it shot to my favorite type of binding along with Coptic binding (because the book can be opened flat) and link stitch.
Fiction
Dmitry the Scavenger has progressed nicely. I think it’s up to about 75 pages and he is working with a carpenter, learning Japanese, and has a small old dumpy place to live on the first floor of an abandoned squid warehouse.
Why squid? The area where he is now, Noto-machi in Japan, used to be famous for squid fishing, packing, and selling. From about 80,000 tons a year (in the 60s) to 300 tons (now).
What has been added other than action? The culture of small-town Japan where the police rely on the Grandmother Network; mostly widowed women who see everything and tell the police about it.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 98, the making of Hog Heaven, is up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. About 13:00.
Books
The Dead of Winter. The famous author is still dead and awaiting your interest in reading about his afterlife in Kanazawa. It has been pointed out to me that this is not necessarily a trilogy but I do have four novels including Sakate, and The Lonely Izakaya Down a Quiet Street (plus a third not yet published) that take place in bars (three in Kanazawa). A reflection of my life style?
Aug 24, 2026
Aug 24, 2026
5 min
Bookbinding
A 112-page blank notebook titled ‘And Then….’ is our accomplishment in bookbinding this week. Plus a large mistake.
The title has two emotional responses.
1. And Then… She dumped the kale pasta on his head. 2. And Then… He dumped the kale pasta on her head.
First response is often: What did he do?! The second response is often: What a monster!
The covers of And Then … are made up of a collage I made years ago. Chopped it up and stuck it on a book. Looks nice. The cover is made up of paper, of course, but also leaves. They look like bay leaves. I made two mistakes: first, measuring and second, cutting incorrectly.
Fiction
Dmitry the Scavenger is working and learning Japanese the old fashioned way – no textbooks or formal teachers, but picking it up in a bar and at work. No writing of hiragana, katakana, or kanji; just speaking. The only reading is of signs he sees everyday or instructions (on, off, danger) on machines he uses. Mostly, he speaks to people. And drinks.
He also has a small room of his own; he worries about immigration, the police, and passports.
Talkies / Flicks
TDGB 97 is up and running. While it shows the creation of And Then… it doesn’t show the Big Mistake I made as I made it. I tell you, I don’t show you.
It was quite frustrating and boils down to my not paying attention to what I was doing. Oops.
Books
Dead of Winter: A Novelist’s Kanazawa Afterlife is still up and awaiting your interest.
It is also available as a free audio book on YouTube in my feed (Chapter One: Judy Seduces a Dead Man). It has 8 chapters in total for about 75 minutes listening time.
Aug 16, 2026
Aug 16, 2026
6 min
Bookbinding
Why is it called Swimming in the Dessert? It’s blank, right? Yes, it is. But there’s an 18-minute short movie called Swimming in the Desert that looks interesting so, not to confuse anybody with two titles for completely different subjects, I changed it to Dessert.
It’s seven signatures of five folios each for 140 
pages, A6 (pocketbook) with a red spine, blue front cover with a splash of what looks like Thai writing, with light blue and green on the back cover.
All the materials (except the thread and beeswax) are from my To-Be-Used in the Future pile. The book boards are from a leftover box that might have held saké. The book covers are made of three book cloths (blue, light blue, green, and red) that were left over from previous projects and the text block, yes, the text block was given me by a printing company in town that was just going to throw them away. I got them maybe 15 years ago and I’m down to the last pile. The endbands were made of the leftover red book cloth and twine (not left over but purchased maybe a decade ago).
Fiction
Of the three books I should be working on: Dmitry the Scavenger, Agnes Grout, Caraculiambro only one, not the two set in the US, is being worked on.
Dmitry the Scavenger has started work as a handyman for a Japanese carpenter who is helping people affected by the January 1, 2024 earthquake that demolished many buildings, many homes, and lives. First, he will help tear down a broken home. He’s still concerned about getting to Noto, Sicily before the police arrest him for being an illegal alien
Talkies / Flicks
Two videos up this week. One from last week.
The Dead of Winter: a Novelist’s Kanazawa Afterlife.
is up for your listening pleasure. About a novelist who dies and comes to Kanazawa. He meets a sarcastic jazz coffee shop owner who argues with him about his writing. He also meets her customers, who may also be dead.
TDGB 96 Sundae Swimming in the Dessert, a 9:20 minute video of the making of the Swimming.
Books
The Dead of Winter: a Novelist's Kanazawa Afterlife. is available on Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. You can listen to it on my YouTube channel before you buy.