By Alan Cleaver

MY heart sank ever so slightly when I read that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger had found a new use for books – propping up his ebook.  Was this the death knell for the greatest invention ever? Was the product that had lasted for hundreds of years and helped mankind build civilization now doomed to nothing more than being a stand for iPads and Kindles?

I had visions of a whole new arts and crafts form being rolled out across the world. Just as LPs had been melted down into flower pots and ashtrays when the CD came along, I could see books being glued shut and varnished as decorative bookstands and table weights. Please God no.

Fortunately, having researched further and spoken to various ‘book experts’ I’ve changed my mind. Largely, it’s down to Doug Mitchell, book binder from the British Library, who helped me realise just how beautiful a book could be. Books can be bound by slapping some glue on the spine but they can also be lovingly crafted by hand. We’ve taken the book for granted for too long and it’s time to  rediscover this artform.

In mediaeval times, books were of such monetary and intellectual value that they were chained to the library. I wouldn’t want to return to the days when books only belonged to the elite but a return to books being as much works of art as they are a joy to possess is perhaps long overdue.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” said William Morris and it strikes me that books can be both.

Perhaps the rot first set in when Allen Lane stood on Exeter station in 1935 and realised there were no good quality but cheaply-priced books available to buy. He launched Penguin books and sold them not just at bookshops but in railway stations, tobacconists and chain stories. It was a worthy goal – and a very successful one commercially – but the resultant flood of disposable cheap books (many of high quality) means we take them for granted.

And I was struck by something I stumbled upon the other day. It was a reference to an 18th century work by Cumbrian wizard Dr Fairer: The Book of Black Art.  A 19th century writer told how  “until very lately it was believed there was great danger in opening this book”. The idea that a book could be too dangerous to open made me immediately want a copy!  Sadly, it’s long since vanished without trace. But here was another element of books that we have lost: their magic.
I’ve always been very jealous of children’s books. I’ve stood in bookshops and glanced over the dreadfully dull bindings and covers in the main section – but then drooled ever the brightly-coloured, pop-up children’s books that come complete with secret compartments, free gifts and even sound effects. Why can’t adult books be like that?

The good news is, they can. Do a Google search of “book art” and you’ll be led to a magical world of modern bookbinding where the line between author and artist is blurred. You’ll find publishers like Old Stile Press – Frances and Nicolas McDowell, who live in Llandogo, Monmouthshire, and handprint, on an old letterpress, gobsmackingly beautiful books. They even make the paper for some of the books. And they talk about “an almost theatrical initial impact” and “a specific feel and appropriate ‘feel’ for each book”.

When did you last buy a book that had a ‘theatrical impact’? One wonders what they put down on forms as their job description: publisher, artist or magician?

Book artists like Frances and Nicolas are helping people rediscover a love for books. Handcrafted books are not cheap but you can buy cheap books anywhere. Besides, I suspect paying up to £100 for a handcrafted tome means you treat it with respect, read it slowly and are happy to leave it on the mantelpiece as an ornament rather than shove it back on a bookshelf.

I have a vision that Microsoft founder Bill Gates will wander down a backstreet and stumble across one of our modern book artists. He’ll pick up a handbound copy of a book, printed on handmade paper and, in a Eureka moment, declare: “Good grief, I have seen the future. The computer is dead, long live the book!”

~~~o~~~

Alan Cleaver is deputy editor of The Whitehaven News. He has worked in journalism all his life and pioneered newspapers publishing on the web as well as the UK’s first e-newspapers. He lives in Whitehaven with his partner Lesley.

(Copyright information:  top to bottom – andymangold, mrsjennyryan and olayab, all reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.  Photo of Alan – Mike McKenzie.)