From the ABM Library: A Sky Empty of Orion

What with Iris Law’s survey of chapbooks in her recent guest post for this blog, it seemed only right to feature a chapbook in the American Bookbinders Museum Library as well. A Sky Empty of Orion is the 1985 creation of noted American poet Laura Jensen, and serves as an

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Four Beautiful Chapbooks by Asian American Poets to Read during National Poetry Month

  The chapbook, an abbreviated print format that originated with cheap, mass-produced pamphlets hawked by itinerant salesmen in the sixteenth century, is a staple of the modern-day poetry world. Like their historical predecessors, contemporary chapbooks are slim, portable objects, often affordably printed and produced, and devoted to shorter texts. But

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Book Traces

My first book love was the odd world of medieval manuscript art: an age defined by distinctive books that are inherently unique in form if not content.  These handwritten and handmade books form the core of my knowledge of books and the advent of the age of printing alone is

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Penguin Bindings: A Short History

I love merchandise, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Especially if it’s book-related. Lately, I’ve found myself drawn to the plethora of items sold by Penguin that recall the nostalgia of their classic binding. You know which one I mean – the three horizontal stripes, famously orange, with the

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