Live & Learn: Real Life Journals: Designing & Using Handmade Books

Thick, creamy paper, gorgeous photos, a gallery of pages from beautiful journals, and step-by step sketches draw the readers right in to the mechanics of amateur book construction and open the way toward creative, individualized bookmaking projects. Chapters on tools, covers, paper choices, and bindings are detailed and fully illustrated, but Diehn, a designer as well as an artist, goes well beyond that, making a point to include information on creating a purposeful design, enriching textual content, and binding the words to the visual elements to reflect a bookmaker’s interests and personality. To that end she includes a chapter comprising nine short profiles of individuals whom she helped build journals. The profiles reference a “Choose Your Own Bookbinding Adventure” booklet located in an envelope on the inside front cover. The device is perfect for individual users (as is the tip sheet attached at the back), but librarians will need to secure the booklet to ensure the chapter makes sense. Even with the bit of extra work required, this remains a lovely, helpful volume that will inspire and attract journalers and scrapbookers alike. --Stephanie Zvirin