Ma Nao Books is folding

Like, 500 times.

After a couple months of intensive editing, compiling, and designing, the literary-legacy project finally comes to the binding bench, starting with all those outsize folios—the text and the kozo cover sheet over the title page—that need halving, by hand of course! I collate them with the three-ply image gatefold and give 'em a good nipping in the press.

Next I tuck the text folios inside a cloth spine and make my first stab (ha) at sewing. The books still look and feel like such slim things, but they just keep growing in presence, especially when the boards go on.

This being a more complex multimedia package, I'll end up sewing each little packet of love twice, attaching endsheets (half of which paste down to the bookboard on the inside covers) and the archival double-sided CD envelopes the second time I sew.