We spent the afternoon at the annual book fair of Austin Book Workers (you bet I’ll be joining that group!). We saw some lovely books and even some demos on paper marbling. My favorite was the suminagashi which I’ve never seen before.

Here’s a pic of the demo. After the artist has added the ink in the water, rice paper is laid on the water surface to “pick up” the ink. The paper is then set to dry and can be used for calligraphy or any other paper arts. I wish I had a picture of some of the finished results but I was too busy watching this that I forgot to take those pics. This really looks like a lot of fun so maybe one day I’ll have to try it out.

Finally, I took a few pictures of my springback book. Remember this book? Well here’s how it turned out.

It has leather covers, chiyogami paper on the front and must weigh at least a pound. The covers are thick and it has approximately 900 pages. All blank and waiting for my inspired writings. Ha,ha…

Here’s another picture of the inside so you can see a bit more.

Eventually I need to take better pictures of this one to add it to my bookart page. I’m just so excited it’s finished because what with my move, vacation, etc. I almost thought I’d never see the complete version!

In my previous post I mentioned that I couldn’t seem to find something to read right? Well, I decided to just grab four books and go with it. So, yesterday I packed my books and headed over to a cool cafe. I had a mocha latte and started reading for a couple of hours. Bliss.

Let me tell you about the books because they’ve all captured my attention and now I’m jumping from book to book. It’s great.

• Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor. This author is one I’ve been wanting to discover for a couple of years now. I know some of you in blogland have mentioned her a lot and I just hadn’t had the chance. One of the blurbs on the back cover of the book is by Anne Tyler and she says “Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen – soul-sisters all.” So, I think you can imagine what the style of the book must be like. I’m half way into it and it’s really good.
• The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte. This book counts as a challenge read for two of my challenges. Right now, I can’t say too much about the book. It’s a bit slow but I do like all the descriptions of Seville. I visited there many years ago and it’s nice to revisit even if it’s only through the pages of a book.
• Apples & Oranges by Marie Brenner. A memoir about a turbulent sibling relationship. The story of the brother and sister is interesting to say the least but the aside on the orchards and apples (the brother has given up being a trial lawyer to own orchards) is not holding my interest as much.
• Die With Me by Elena Forbes. A british police procedural. So far I like the detectives so that’s a good thing.

The rest of the day I hope to catch up with some of you who are doing The Sunday Salon, read the latest issue of Estella’s Revenge and pop over to Half Price Books to make use of my coupon.