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BOOKS
HUFFINGTON
11.11.12
COURTESY OF NEW DIRECTIONS
The attributes that ebooks
don’t do well or at all—heavy
paper stocks, bookmark
ribbons, book plates, artful
typography, metallic foils, and
stunning, colorful covers—are
being implemented in what
many see a new flourishing of
the mass-produced book arts.”
from their digital counterparts?
It may be stating the obvious,
but books exist—in a way that
memory on a microchip does not.
Enduring physical presence is no
small thing in an age when information appears on a screen, then
changes, evolves, and at times
even disappears. And as efficient
as ebook retailers are, clicking to
purchase is a fairly soulless affair
in comparison to the pleasures of
browsing in a bookstore.
As Anna Gerber and Britt Iversen, publishers of one of the hottest new book art companies, Visual Editions, said in an interview
with website The Experts Agree,
“We think it’s the right time, in
terms of how we read, how books
are being made, how books are
being thought of, to be publishing
visually rich books that also tell
wonderful stories.”
This might be a generational
anomaly, created by those with
nostalgia for print and libraries,
soon to disappear once the digital natives are in charge. Or this
might be the moment where print,
freed from its need to do everything, becomes even better at doing what it can do uniquely.
In the years to come, if you
want to know why physical books
and bookstores seem more special than ever, maybe you
should thank Amazon.
Anne Carson’s
Nox is a poetic
collage to
her deceased
brother that
opens into an
accordionstyle fold-out.