What is a book?

book n. Abbr. b., B., bk.1. A volume made up of written or printed pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers. 2. Any written or printed literary work. 3. A bound volume of blank or ruled pages.

What is a Book?
by Lora Dunetz

A book is pages, pictures, and words
A book is animals, people, and birds;
A book is stories of queens and kings,
Poems, and songs - so many things!
Curled in a corner where I can hide,
With a book I can journey far and wide.
Though it's only paper from end to end,
A book is a very special friend.

"A book is something you pick up and read."
Richard Seibert

"...All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been...is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
Thomas Carlye

"When you sell a man a book you don't just sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue. You sell him a whole new life."

"While many viewers may not think of books themselves as works of art...to take the next step and experience an artist's book as the sum of its part; binding, text and visual imagery is not that difficult."
David Edlefsen

The problem is that everyone has a different story and a different set of interests, abilities and experiences. As a result, there has to be a wide variety of ways and methods to record and preserve these stories. Therefore you can find shape books, counting books, puppet books, unfolding books, journals, diaries, action books, pocket books, collage books, informative books etc.

found at www.artistbooks.com

But just how interactive can a book be?




































"David Small's Talmud Project is a work of genius. A prototype for an interactive book, produced at the MIT Media Lab, the project may be the Trennial's most powerful piece of architecture. Combining passages from the Torah and the Talmud, in English and French translations, the software enables viewers to manipulate blocks of text into the walls, streets and windows in an imaginary city of words..."
New York Times, March 10, 2000

Hmmmm... OK then!!
















This is a two metre high interactive book. Now that is the extreme of book interaction! Courtesy of the Helen Storey Foundation.








The book invites anyone to leave their own expressions of joy and distress.