Rainy days and bookbinding get me up

Last I logged in here, I was putting happy X-Acto gouges in the new bookbinding table at the bindery, reveling in perfect north and south light, a space big enough for swinging sheets of bookboard, and all materials within easy reach.

Looking forward, a real Web site is on the New Year's resolution list for launching in early 2007 (www.manaobooks.com). Another resolution involves publishing the Chinese-bookbinding manual that I've wanted to assemble since apprenticing at Beijing's National Library of China.

Speaking of Chinese bookbinding, I plan to offer a workshop teaching three of the five oldest bindings—complete with the shutao wraparound cover—starting in mid-January.

Now that the construction dust is (mostly) swept away, the bindery is so in business. Before the El Salvador honeymoon last month, I sent off a long-held commission, a two-part clamshell box holding volumes of 1940s French poetry. It was fun to do something different, and even more fun getting the first project on and off the bench in the new space.