Sticker on Sign Post

Colophon

Traditional physical book forms have interesting and charming elements that add to the aesthetic pleasure of holding and reading a real book.  One such element that is not often seen anymore (as most of the information would now be given on the back of the title page, the copyright, or imprint, page) is the colophon.

A colophon is a note at the end of a book that gives information about the printing of the book.  In early books, before there were title pages the colophon was the only place to find this information.   In more modern times, colophons are found in books printed by the "private press movement" - presses devoted to printing books as works of art, rather than as a commercial venture.

This colophon is from a book printed in 1941.  The small image at the bottom is called a printer's device.  Here the colophon gives information about the printing processes used, the engravers, typesetter, and bookbinder.

Addendum

There's a lot of talk in the book world about what the future of books will be.  Some fear that the physical book will disappear or become a niche collectible item, as has happened with vinyl records.  This question brings to mind the physical qualities which add charm and make books unique, such as inserts, and how much I will miss them, should they ever go away.

Recently, in handling a book, A Pictorial History of English Architecture, by John Betjeman, (published by John G. Murray, London, 1972), to my amusement the following printed card, about the size of a standard business card fell out of the pages:

Be careful when going to Australia!  It's always best to use the third person for authority and emphasis.

This card is a fine example of an addendum, thus defined by Wikipedia:

In a book, an addendum (sometimes referred to as an appendix, plural appendices) is a supplemental addition to a given main work. It may explain inconsistencies or otherwise explain or update the information found in the main work, especially if any such problems were detected too late to correct the main work. For example, the main work could have had already been printed and the cost of destroying the batch and reprinting is deemed too high. As such, addenda may come in many forms — a separate letter included with the work, text files on a digital medium, or any similar carrier. It may serve to notify the reader of errors present, as an errata.

It's interesting that digital books apparently may have addendum also.  I looked for the photos of the buildings offered as cautionary examples by the author of the above book, and they were in fact hideous.

On another note, I have been interviewed by the IOBA regarding my experience attending Rare Book School here: An Interview with Amy Candiotti, IOBA RBS Scholarship Winner

And Sean is mentioned in a SLOG post about the recent May Day protests in Seattle here:  Why All the Smashy-Smashy? A Beginner's Guide to Targeted Property Destruction.

Why Pistil Books?

I am being interviewed by the IOBA (Independent Online Booksellers Association) for a feature on their website, and one of the questions that has come up is why we chose the name Pistil Books.  This has been an oft-asked question during the life of our store, and quite frequently we've been mistakenly thought to be Pistol Books.

Here's a postcard we used to send out (images and definitions from a children's dictionary) by way of explanation.

We chose the name Pistil Books because we liked the play of the word pistil, a female flower part, versus pistol, a gun. A homophone with two very different meanings. From the sound of the word, it's unclear which pistil/pistol we are.  As a part of a flower, pistil evokes the idea of growing, living, flowering... and in the case of books, flowering knowledge.  A slogan for Pistil Books (it's printed on our bookmarks) is "Seed your head."  

We have used flowers as a theme for our business - our retail store had a stained glass sunflower window, as well as a colorful flower mosaic we made on the floor (it's still there - though our old retail storefront is now a burrito joint). 

We now have flower mosaics around the exterior door of our office/warehouse, a lovely vintage three-dimensional scientific model of a pistil on a shelf above my desk, and a flower/bee/knowledge theme on our website.

Crap Hound

When Pistil Books was a retail store, one of our specialties was zines - those small, independent, often self-published periodicals that embodied alternative culture in the days before the internet and electronic publishing.  Crap Hound, edited by Sean Tejaratchi, was one of our favorites and a best-seller.  Crap Hound is packed with high-contrast black and white images gathered from vintage commercial and graphic art based on a theme.  Past issues have covered the subjects of  Bait, Devils & Clowns;  Hands, Hearts & Eyes; Death, Telephones & Scissors; and Church & State.

We are pleased to offer for sale the latest Crap Hound #8: Superstition published by Show & Tell Press.

Flipping through the pages, here are some of the multitude of images you'll see:  Butterflies and moths, apples, New Year's bells, black cats, hats, crows, fish, wrapped packages, horseshoes, books, doors, boots, owls, snakes, storks, fences, and more.

More Found in Books

The program for Raymond Burr's Memorial Service from 1993

A lovely drawing.

So many things pressed between pages.

There was also a letter to Dan Savage.

Book Plates

There's a great show of  book plates and ex libris prints at Davidson Galleries in Seattle's Pioneer Square that just ended (okay, I meant to post this earlier).  The book plates displayed in the gallery are miniature prints made by artists to show book ownership.  "Ex libris" means "from the library of."


We come across book plates in our inventory, though they are usually of the mass produced kind that you can buy in a bookstore or stationery store in a box, with a blank space for your name. Often these commercially made book plates are prints of famous pieces of art.  Sometimes they are reading and/or book themed.  I remember receiving a gift such a box of book plates in sixth grade:  the classic image of the cat on top of a stack of books.

Here are some book plates discovered in our current inventory:

Pegasus leaping over a rainbow - found in Richard Wagner:  A Mystic in the Making.

The artwork is by Braldt Bralds; found in The Communication Ethics Controversy.

It's Hokusai's The Great Wave; found in History of the Islamic Peoples.

Appropriately enough, this book plate was found in Irish Carved Ornament.

Found in The Crucible of Europe:  The Ninth and Tenth Centureis in European History.

Found in a book called Metal Processing from 1941.

This is a signed Margaret Atwood book plate; found in her novel The Blind Assassin.  The artist is Claire Lerner.