Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[neon_jellyfish]

Ooh this is a wonderful photo. The book looks so interesting and your librarian looks so proud to have it.

Thank you! It's a great book, if you're into that kind of topic.

Lovely portrait, indeed.

And a truly unusual, and very specialized, book! Which brings to mind two questions:

1. Have you read it (or parts of it, or most of it)?

2. What prompted your interest in such a niche topic?

Okay, three questions:

3. How did you learn that such a specialized tome even existed?

Thank you!

To answer your questions in a somewhat "suddenly, it's Neon's life story!" style - I went to an art high school, and for my final exam (we have overall results and final exams on top of that), I had to, among other things, make illustrations for a story of my choice and bind it all into a book. I always loved books, so it really clicked with me and I chose bookbinding as my major when I went to art college. Then it turned out I lack what nowadays constitutes talent for art, flunked out (honestly, I wasn't even trying to stay there, I lost all my motivation) and went on to get a totally useless bachelor degree from a totally useless uni in a completely different field.

My college's library had practically zero literature on bookbinding, eventhough it had a whole major dedicated to it, and city library only had a few books and waitlists for those were pretty much infinite. So I set out to put together my own little private collection. I was, and still am, very proud of it, and I got a lot of As thanks to actually having literature to research. I've read this book, but not in one go, it was chapter here, chapter there, depending on what I needed to learn. I don't remember much of it, to be honest, because it goes into insane levels of detail. It's a really good book.

Even after leaving the college, I still love bookbinding (I still have some equipment, but not space, I hope to renew my 'workshop' one day) and books in general, so I kept everything. Actually, if there's a fire, I'm getting kitty to safety, and then I'm running back into the flames to save these books (and dolls, of course), because a lot of them aren't in print anymore and are increasingly harder to find, and I'm very attached to them. Heeyyyy, maybe I could do a series of photos with my book treasures...

I hope that answers your questions!

How fun to find a book you have hunted for through used book shops. Like finding hidden treasure. Your librarian is very pretty.

Thank you! It was fun, and the hunt resulted in finding other unex²pected hidden treasures along the way, in form of books I wasn't originally looking for but I'm really happy to have, and for a great price! For example specific translations of Bulgakov, I only read translations of his work from one person, the other ones, while also good, just don't scratch that itch. A weird quirk to have, isn't it...

Both the doll and the book are very attractive.

Thank you!

I love the cover of the book - and the librarian is very proud that you (she) hunted it down to add to the collection.

Thank you! The cover of the book is a page from medieval Czech translation of Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae. I can only read it with a lot of troubles and a lot of confused staring, and my understanding of it is limited, the language really changed a lot since then. It was one of the first printed books in Czech Kingdom.


Day 251

It's been a while since I last took a photo of this girl.



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