Bookbinding

I’ve made three books in the last week or so. All the same topic. All the same size - A6 or pocketbook. All with some mistakes. All three books have the same four short stories:

• Morris & Maurice is about a janitor and his Siamese cat, if you please, who witness both the development of a park and a murder.

• Paul’s Paris Disneyland’s Farewell Party about three friends who get together in Paris to celebrate Paul’s retirement. They walk in the footsteps of Marcel Proust primarily because I discovered Paris Disneyland is very close to a small village called Guermantes. 

• Satan Rains is about a heavy metal band that has trouble getting gigs until a tragedy occurs. 

• Snow Country. I told you about this short story last time, but I’ll refresh my memory. Three work-from-home weavers Zoom each other before their work day begins and tell each other ghost stories to give them something to think about as they weave. Two experience a ghostly event in their ’real’ lives.

I put all four short stories into one book called Snow Country. I printed it out. In the first edition, I thought the type was too small and the leading too close. The first attempt has 117 pages. That’s the green volume.

The second printing had an interesting problem: different fonts for the different stories. I don’t know how that happened. Probably when I imported the different stories into the book design app I was using.  Second, I usually want a new chapter to begin on the right page; the recto/odd-numbered page. One story in the second printing started on the left page; the verso or even-numbered page. Again, though, I thought the leading was too close. My biggest mistake on this printing was not gluing down the mull onto the book board. I did, however, glue it to the text block. I have no idea why I failed to do that. This attempt has 131 pages. This is the pale blue volume on the left.

So, I tried again. I made sure the leading was good, the fonts consistent, and the type the proper size. I checked, and all was good. I printed it out.

I began gathering the parts, bits, and material to case it in. I checked one more time to make sure. This attempt’s mistake is: it has two page 13s. Why? I have no idea. This attempt has 172 pages and is the pale blue number on the right.

With the third printing, I didn’t want to waste the paper, so I continued making it. The printer decided the book-cloth cover, pale blue, needed a splash of ink on the back, so this printing has that. Unfortunately, I misaligned the cover. The name of the book on the spine is not centered correctly. Ah, how we wish we could live and learn.

Fiction

I started a semi-fictional something. In Japanese, it’s called a zuihitsu. I believe in English it would be called a miscellany or journal. Zuihitsu means to write where the wind blows you. No, it doesn’t; it means: follow the brush (as in a calligraphy brush, not shrubbery.)

Ken Kesey wrote two zuihitsu, I believe. The first, Ken Kesey’s Garage Sale, contained essays, fiction, a play, and other musings. His second, Demon Box, had fiction and non-fiction essays. 

The most famous, in Japan, zuihitsu is from the woman who invented the genre. Sei Shonagon wrote The Pillow Book (Makura no Soshi) in the late 900s and early 1000s. Yes, about a thousand years ago. Her book had essays, anecdotes, poems, her opinions, and descriptive passages of life in the Heian era court, and seemingly endless lists of things.

I started it, in any case. There is a translator’s introduction that claims the writings were originally written by an Arab historian called Cide Hamete Benengeli. 

So far, it has fiction, non-fiction, and a recipe (for bread).

I started a novel, too. I have a name for it: The Tale of Kenshi. It’s about a woman who doesn’t fit her physical body; she doesn’t think she’s as beautiful as she’s been constantly told. She puts up an act when she’s around people, but buries her real personality out of sight. She meets and talks with an old crow, a bird, not an old woman. Or maybe the crow is a reincarnated old woman? Hard to tell right now.

Video

I have posted two videos for your viewing pleasure.

The first is one of my attempts to make Snow Country. It shows the making of the cover, but not the casing in.

The second is my third attempt at casing in Snow Country, which is available here: Casing in Snow Country: Is the Third Time the Charm?