Someone (you know who you are!) recently sent me an article from the New York Times, How To Publish Without Perishing, and I only wish the author, James Gleick, knew about artists books. He talks about books as physical objects. And that's as far as he goes. He's so right, books are physical objects, but they are not just containers for information, which is what he meant. A book can be so much more: the materials, the design, the structure, the imagery. All these elements can be combined in an infinite number of ways to express an infinite number of ideas. He even talks about the smell of the paper and the crack of the spine, but he doesn't see the book as a potential for a work of art, beyond the literary work that is.
And then he talks about the codex. It's true the codex was a brilliant invention, but what about all the other forms. Particularly, the Japanese invention of the side bound book. It's really just as good as the codex. Especially since Japanese paper can be so thin. Accordions and scrolls are useful too when thought of in relation to art, but not so much a huge literary tome.
He ends the article describing a book as "a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it." That I agree with, but if only he knew...
