A new documentary explores the remarkable resilience of the book
The internet has been a ballast, not a setback, it argues
By A.C. | SAN FRANCISCO
ONE IS MADE entirely of lead; another dances when opened. A third includes images of Mount Fuji fashioned from foam sponges, and a children’s book weaves together pictures and strands of text from classic tales. All pose the same fascinating question: what, in a digital age, are physical books still for?
Some answers emerge in “The Book Makers”, an enchanting new documentary that probes the form and function of the codex, that hunk of paper between two boards that has evolved over millennia into the ideal reading device. The film is not just a dazzling introduction to the art of the book. It is also a passionate tribute to this extraordinary invention that renders the intangible—ideas, thoughts, feelings—tangible.
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