The Thing The Book: A Monument to the Book as Object

What exactly is a book? This wildly inventive and thought-provoking volume asks that question of more than 30 of today's top creative visionaries, from Ed Ruscha to Miranda July, John Baldessari to Jonathan Lethem. Each traditional element of a book—from endpapers to footnotes—is assigned to a different artist or writer invited to use the space as a creative playground. The result is a collaborative group art project like no other. A ribbon bookmark by David Shrigley, page numbers by Tauba Auerbach, endnotes by Rick Moody—each contribution surprising and brilliant. This one-of-a-kind book will entrance anyone who appreciates art, literature, and the surprising possibilities that emerge when the two collide.

San Francisco–based artists Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan are curators of THE THING Quarterly, an experimental periodical that takes the form of a different physical object each issue.