Book du jour - reading rooms

ready for sewing

Both sides of the accordion are ready. At the bottom (forming the skirting board in the "rooms") is written: "A house without books is like a room without windows" over-written by "A book is a room full of riches".

When you're in a hurry and don't remember to check and recheck, this is what can happen -

mis-match - unpicking needed!

After the sewing, the covers were glued on - and the edges of the paper gone over with a black felt pen (that made a subtle but surprising difference, but isn't apparent in the photos) -

preliminary work and extras

To hold the book closed, a band goes around it - inside which the two quotes written into the rooms were printed. Of course this needed experimentation too, not just for the patterning and to decide the width but to get the length of the band right and to centre the quotes -

The final books, mixing and mingling -

Another way of displaying  the book - the rooms become a "cultural bridge" -

My books have joined the other contributions to the project and I've had confirmation that they are now in Bristol. 

141 of the books have already been added to the online inventory - these are some examples -

The first UK show of all 262 books, and associated book arts events, will run from 6 February to 29 July 2013, at the John Rylands Library, Manchester. In the USA, the San Francisco Center for the Book will show a selection of 40 books from An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street from 1 February to 26 April 2013, and the Center for Book Arts in New York will exhibit An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, from 10 July to 14 September 2013.