Category: Books

  • If The Book of Kells Could Talk

    —

    in

    Book of Kells, folio 114r (Gospel of Matthew), depicting Christ praying on the Mount of Olives. Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin. Image from Visit Trinity.  Young people sit quietly around a workbench, grinding materials such as malachite, or saffron for pigment, applying gilding, and meticulously painting letters to their nearly completed illuminated manuscripts. These are…

  • Bookplates and Literary Culture

    —

    in

    Ownership, Identity, and the Private Library Lanting Xu (“Orchid Pavilion Preface”) is a piece of Chinese calligraphy generally considered to have been written by the renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303–361) during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420).1 A Personal Printing Project One of the most interesting printing jobs I have done was making bookplates for a…

  • How to Print a Family History Book

    —

    in

    Turning photographs, letters, stories, and family archives into a meaningful printed object Many families have a treasure trove of photos and other archival materials that sit and collect dust in a basement or closet somewhere. If lucky, these scraps of our past get trotted out during a holiday or special occasion and along come the…