Review written for ClubReading.com by Linda
Book lovers sometimes love the content of books and don’t care about the binding. I usually fall into that category, but sometimes a book is so beautifully bound that the binding, the book itself, is a work of art.
This book explains some about the author’s apprenticeship to a master conservator. She repaired books from the University of Iowa’s Special Collection. The job was to make the books serviceable, but to change them as little as possible from the original.
The author explains the steps in conserving books, including, incredibly, washing the pages! Don’t try this at home–there are several special steps to go through.
If you have ever been the least bit curious about making books, or paper, or a particularly beautiful cover you’ve seen, this book is a must read. If you have ever been curious about apprenticeships, this is another wonderful read.
The text, while explaining the processes, is often too detailed for me to follow. The prose is wonderful, though, and even when I couldn’t picture exactly what the author was describing, I enjoyed it a great deal.