On the importance of books as objects.

A chicken walks into a library, waddles up to the librarian and say, “Book!” The librarian, confused but curious, hands the chicken the nearest book who takes it in it’s beak and waddles off. The next day the chicken returns and says, “Book, book!” The librarian, bemused, hands the chicken two books and it waddles off. The next day the chickens returns once more and says, “Book, book, book!” The librarian once more hands the chicken three books but in a fit of curiosity follows the chicken to see what it is doing with the books. The librarian eventually follows the chicken to a local pond and watches as the chicken passes the books to a toad, the toad chucks each one away and each time states, “Read it… read it… read it…”

So I heard that joke from Stephen Fry during a QI Live show and it’s been stuck in my head ever since, as a lover of books and puns it’s a cracker… so lets talk about books. Books were invented by Phillip J Book in the early 18th century and…. I’m sorry I couldn’t resist that bit.

Books and I have a weird past time, there was a point were I so turned off of reading by all the mandatory dribble that our esteemed education system forced upon my brain that I never truly cared for it. I mean there are movies and video games out there why would I need to read the things I can see, sheeesh! That is until I discovered Terry Pratchett and became “a reader”.

As much as I love my kindle and it’s benefits regarding ease of travel and access to an astounding library at a touch there is just something about the physical act of reading that is somewhat peaceful at times, this more than ever can apply to photo books. If you’ve never looked at photography off of a screen then you’ll probably never know how truly great this medium can be, I’m not trying to be ablest or a luddite just that a well printed and framed photograph can truly bring out the colour and the depth of an image that pixels simply cannot replicate. It is simply the difference between being in the same physical space with an object and viewing it on screen that can be easily dismissed.

When it came to making design choices for our book in Research this year, I knew I needed my book to be really… booky. If this was to be my one and only book, then it needed to enhabit all the things I associate with book, in all it’s booky bookness. I wanted it to be big, I wanted it to hardback, I wanted a wraparound cover that could easily be lost but book lovers would treasure, I wanted a book that stood out and proclaimed what it was even if it ultimately ended up ignored on a coffee table, I wanted something that when I put it in my hands I’d be happy to know it’s mine just from the sheer physicality of it.

Adam Savage has talked about this several times on Tested in the past when discussing props and replicas, he mostly talks about the experience of the object and he needs to get something out of it for him to enjoy it; this of course often relates to movies he loves when talking about props, but his reaction to finding a prop that functions as it would in the real world is pure delight. And I think that’s why this was so important to me to have a book that embodied all that is “book” to me.

With media being so disposable, so ethereal, so ignorable, it’s sometimes necessary to have some physical dimensionality to something, to be able to touch and interact with it, even it’s just the physical act of turning a page. It often makes the reader take note of what is on the other side and no just flicking through on an endless and unremarkable scroll. Digital media is fine, it’s fine, but I still want to buy that dumb film I loved on a disc filled with bonus features I’ll never watch on a steelbook that’ll probably rust and be worth less then the plastic is was printed on in a few years, because it’s important to me to have that object in my hands sometimes.

Yeah I know, I’m a hypocrite for using a digital image of my book, but I’m still wanting on my new physical proof to come in that should have arrived yesterday.

So buy my book when it launches sometime in the new year.

S