Ep. 266: Islamic-German Binding

Bookbinding

This is a paperback-size ( 文庫本 in Japanese, pronounced bunko-bon) junk notebook with an Islamic cover (the flap over the edge protects the textblock) but German (and English) writing on the front. Filled with eight signatures of leftover scrap paper from other projects.

First I cut out ordinary paper as a template for the cover. Next, I put the template on very thin card stock paper to use as a cover. Then, for some inexplicable reason, I glued the template to the card stock. And finally used craft paper as the cover knowing I was going to slap on some left-over papers I had stored up over the decades (the Austrian tram ticket is from, maybe, ten or more years ago). 

I made this primarily to practice Islamic binding. Especially gluing in the endpapers on the flap the lies over the front cover. Most corners for covers are cut at a 90˚ angle to the paper. The corners for the flap are not quite so straight forward and I had a bit of hit-and-miss experimenting before I got cut properly. 

 

Fiction

In fiction, as I said last time, I finished a novel (The New Crucifixions) in the first week of December. After that I looked through my messed-up files to see what other fiction I could find lurking about in the computer like digital vampires. I found a novel with great premise that I started about two years ago. I mentioned it here before. It’s called The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout: Death Weaver. Agnes was a weaver in Lowell, Massachusetts starting in about 1850 until her death in 2020 at 170 years old. Besides longevity, her main super power is the ability to predict the deaths of people around her and warn them to avoid certain activities or places to avoid death. Not all of the people believe her.

Aside from Agnes, I am working on another novel which was called Molly Bright but I changed it to Surfing Osaka because Molly, while a main character, is not the only character who changes. However, since most of the novel – a kidnapping – takes place in Osaka, I felt it only reasonable to use a different title.

The next installment of Calvado: A Deathly Love Story is up.