Gotta change things up, keep things fresh. This video is fantastic and highly educational. It teaches you how to whittle your own 19th Century dictionary, using only string, a turnip, and a clamp. But first you have to make your own Linotype machine. It’s much easier to go here and just win one of these beautiful artifacts of book artistry. (You will have to be lucky, however.)
Bookmaking. And a quote to go with. A couple weeks ago I picked up In Quest of The Perfect Book, by William Dana Orcutt (almost uselessly rough e-version here). Chapter 2 begins as follows:
A paraphrase of, “Would that mine adversary had written a book,” might well be, “Would that mine enemy had printed a book”; for the building of books has always yielded smaller financial returns for the given amount of labor and ability than is offered in any other line of intelligent human effort.
“Are all the workmen in your establishment blank fools?” an irate publisher demanded of a printer after a particularly aggravating error. “If they were not,” was the patient rejoinder, “they would not be engaged in making books!”
On the other hand, if they can get a few people to pay almost $5000 for these retro deluxe dictionaries, Quercus Press should do alright.
You can acquire a less pricey trade version of the Pictorial Webster’s
{ 4 comments }
Ian 11.12.09 at 3:21 pm
If you click the “see other formats” tab at the top, you can get somewhat less useless versions (like a nice scanned pdf of the book). At least you can in the US – this sometimes varies from place to place, or so my sister tells me.
Jake 11.13.09 at 12:00 am
You might also like this submission to Cool Tools on Books Without Paste or Glue, which concerns a book that explains how to bind your own books.
I haven’t read Books Without Paste or Glue but will sooner or later.
jholbo 11.13.09 at 12:30 am
Thanks Jake, that looks interesting.
Bill Posters 11.13.09 at 9:04 pm
That Linotype machine is gorgeous.
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