i ♥ books

I like the way they smell. My Paradise Lost smells like no one has looked at it in centuries. And then that new book smell. The excitement that comes with discovering the knowledge books contain. The other day I was sitting in the library, looking through some design books, and it hit me: here I was, surrounded by knowledge.   We might be discovering new things daily, advances are made, but none would happen without the previous knowledge, and util recently, that knowledge was stored in books.

So now the digital advent has changed the need for books. Why carry around a brick when you can carry around the lightness of a kindle. I understand the argument that it is more practical to have information stored digitally, that it is more environmentally safe perhaps, that the screen still looks like a real book. But one cannot replace that smell. One cannot walk into an on-line library and be astounded by the immensity of what people have written. A digital file does not compare to the actual words on the actual page. I don't even consider blogging to be proper writing. It has to be done, pen on paper.

So I like my books. I like being able to take one down, open any page, read a bit. I like being lost in a world of my imagination.

But here is another guy I like : Brian Dettmer ( I found him here )

He is known as the "book surgeon" because he forms fantastical pieces of art out of old encyclopaedias and other books.
Here are some examples. Marvellous, aren't they.

.