Most desired invitation

It was the hottest A-list invitation sought after by Regency society
A Voucher to Almacks

A voucher (or ticket of admission) to a ball at Almack’s assembly rooms in London. Only society’s elite were granted these coveted passes. To be stricken from the list was social disaster. This voucher to Almack’s was issued in 1817 to Anna Elizabeth Grenville, Marchioness of Buckingham—who obviously cherished it enough to safeguard it for posterity.

A nice little snap shot of history for lovers of Regency romances and/or Regency period history :)

Playing with words

I came across this when I was looking for book making of material last week and I loved it.
Sometimes we forget how much the writers that came before us played with words and conventions, how much they broke the ground that we now tread. This poem from the 17th century is a wonderful example. Rather than write all about it, I'm going to let this video do my job for me :)

I saw a peacock with a fiery tail.

You don't need to be able to read the book, the poem is read aloud.

Making crazy books

I had a lot of questions about last week's post so here's a little fun with crazy and unusual books. That's right, it's time to go behind the scenes and look at the making of.

The making of Design Criminals. Made of sugar, with wafer sheets printed with vegetable ink for the pages. The consumable book was an exhibition catalogue. Book designer: Andreas Pohancenik.

And Snoop Dog's smokable book. Not so much a making of and more of a look inside. Hemp cover, rolling paper pages (with his song lyrics), and the spine can be used to strike a match.

crazy books

Cook books you can eat, mirror books you can see yourself in, sports books you can play ball with... okay I made the last one up, but the others...

Some books have some very unusual designs:
(more can be found at the link) 

 A recipe book with the recipes printed on sheets of fresh pasta - lasagne a go-go

 The Mirror Book published in 1985 is exactly that, pages of mirrors. It comes complete with a pair of white gloves for smudge-free handling, and it’s meant to be a book about self-discovery: “as one turns the pages, hands are reflected, and on looking closely, our own faces. In the act of turning, the self-image becomes distorted. Here the book is the entrance key to a world of self-contemplation, and, potentially, self-knowledge.”

 This one is made of sugar and printed with vegetable ink. mmmm sugar.

 This is pretty cool, you can only see the text at night. That's right it's glow-in-the-dark, in the light it just looks like a while notebook.

 A direct marketing gimmick to to promote Jungle Book 2, nonetheless they are pretty cool.

 This edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Imp of the Perverse,” designed by Helen Friel, must be destroyed to be properly read. Friel explains, “‘The Imp of the Perverse’ discusses the voice inside all of us that makes us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. Each page is perforated in a grid system with sections of the text missing. Readers must follow the simple instructions to tear and fold specific sections to reveal the missing text. Books are usually precious objects and the destruction is engineered to give the reader conflicting feelings, do they keep the book in it’s perfect untorn form? Or give into the imp and enjoy tearing it apart?”

 Each edition of Richard Long’s Nile (Papers of River Muds) is made from the mud of the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Rhine, the Guatiquia, the Huang He, the Hudson, the Nairobi, and other rivers, each page a little different depending on where it was collected.

Snoop Dog, not usually someone I think of when I think of books, has this gem to add. Each page is made from rolling paper. You can tear out a page and roll a cigarette, the pine can be used to strike a match.