Slant On Life

The Book Makers documentary

I was down one of my learning rabbit holes the other night watching a short documentary on The History Guy’s YouTube channel about the history of paper. At the end of the video, he mentioned a short documentary film called The Book Makers (trailer is here) that sounded interesting to me, with the following description:

“Artists, authors, and book lovers worldwide reveal why books resonate with us like nothing else. The film travels to New York, California, London, and Germany, from the intimate studio space of book artists to the vast digital library of the Internet Archive to explore what books are and can be in a digital age. The documentary features extraordinary handmade books and limited edition printings, and interviews with authors Dave Eggers (McSweeney’s) and Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events), among many others who work to preserve the book’s unique place in popular culture.”

OK, I’m intrigued! So I used this free link provided by The History Guy to watch the documentary on Magellan TV. The link is usable through February 24, 2022 but there are other ways to try to view the show that I mention below if you can’t watch by that date.

Why do you love books?

Probably like most people, I read many things digitally on either my laptop, iPad or phone. It’s convenient, portable, searchable, highlightable, etc. However, depending on the nature of what I’m reading, I still prefer to buy physical books sometimes. For example, I’m interested in photography and I like big format coffee table books, so I’ve purchased many of them from my favorite photographers over the years. Special project books like The Library: A World History by James Campbell/Will Pryce or Transit by Uwe Ommer also find a spot in our home because it’s best to see them in their large format, heavy paper stock grandeur.

One of the reasons why the description of The Book Makers caught my attention was because of the word “resonate”. A good book captures you, transports you, and wraps itself around you in a way that digital media often can’t. You remember a good book for many reasons, but whatever they are it’s probably because it resonated with you and therefore became a small piece of you to carry forward. You attach memories to it. You can feel the touch of the high quality paper in your hand or remember the scent of it in you mind.

That’s why I love books. How about you?

Spend an hour with The Book Makers

With the above being said, it sounded interesting to learn through The Book Makers about the incredible creative and labor intensive effort that goes into handmade books. This is a fading art form as a result of today’s digital media, but there’s a dedicated group of global artisans that still make books by hand using age-old type setting and printing machines. These presses have been handed down, maintained, and used through generations, and what a labor of love it is! The book makers have a large annual gathering called Codex to display, share information about, and sell what they’ve created. These are no ordinary books!

If this sounds interesting, I would encourage you to use this link to watch The Book Makers on Magellan TV for free. If you can’t watch by February 24, 2022 then the show will also air on PBS on certain dates. If those dates have passed in your area then the show might be available to stream on the PBS app, or perhaps even on YouTube eventually. Finally, if you really want to see it and can’t find it somewhere for free, then I suppose you could join Magellan TV for just one month to view The Book Makers and whatever else you might be interested in, and then cancel it if you no longer want it after that.

However you watch it, give The Book Makers a try. It’s a glimpse into the world of people who keep craftsmanship alive in all forms. Enjoy!