A book in ruins

[kestrell]

I hadn't previously thought of a book as a ruin before--more like a tragedy--but there is something whimsical in this description of a search for the most dilapidated book being sold online.
https://jot101.com/2020/06/lousy-condition-cold-climate/
My favorite story of a ruined book was one I read about one gamemaster's creation of a physical copy of the Necronomicon for a Lovecraft-based game. He made the book and then buried it in his backyard for a week, before unearthing it and using it in the game. He felt he had succeeded when the players would argue about who had to hold the book.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Arguing because they wanted to hold the well-designed artifact or arguing because they didn’t want to get their hands dirty?

One of my favorite parts of Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is her discussion of “weeding,” more formally called de-accession.

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2960389

Our central branch library was extensively remodeled and all the books had to move out for a year. This was the opportunity for extensive weeding. Artists used hundreds of weeded books as material for sculptures. They looked neat and horrifying at the same time.

[kestrell]

Arguing because none of the players wanted to touch the book.

[cvirtue]

You might be interested in this account by Adam Savage (formerly of MythBusters) about a book he created which he aged and treated and whatnot, and freaked people out about. I'll give a brief description of what he's showing after his summary (and he talks incessantly in the video.)

Description from the video:
"Adam shares the story of one of his favorite sculptures from his past: The Somnambulist's Travel Kit. It contains an artificially aged book that Adam used to chronicle his dreams for months, along with other artifacts that would live alongside that tome. And as Adam explains, it took an accidental discovery for this sculpture to reach its potential as a piece of art."
"I've always been fascinated with the idea of lost texts."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFmmvfteEso

He's in his workshop. What he has in front of him on the table is something like a small old style suitcase. I'm guessing it's 2 feet by 1.5 foot by about 5 inches deep. Dark red, leather straps, and old brass hinges, probably made of MDF, and looking rather ratty. The top opens up like a box or a book, and inside is the book itself on one side, and on the other side, inside an old box that says Cowan's Chocolate Sticks (which looks Victorian) are the items he describes a bit later in the video,

The book is about 3" thick and maybe 13" high and 11" wide. Many shades of brown in the cover and slightly mangled pages with stains and creases; it's handwritten in what looks like brown fountain pen.

The objects on the other side he describes, but each has a custom socket (not sure if that's the right word) on a surface, like you see for fancy equipment so they don't rattle around. I'm not going to describe them because he does so fairly well, I think.

His story about what happened with the thing starts at 6:30 if you want to jump ahead.