Tuesday 30 April 2019

When is a Book not a Book?

Marble memorial

This post may be just a little off-topic, but I have just learned a new word...

B L O O K.

There is even a book about blooks and you can buy it here

According to its author, Mindell Dubansky, blooks are 'books that aren't', and the reason for this is that they are frequently, but by no means exculsively, made of stone like the ones in the memorial above, which adorn the church of St John the Evangelist in Oxborough, Norfolk. 

My interest in blooks stems from a piece about a small marble book I co-authored in 2010 with my husband, David Gill. It was published in OUP's Notes & Queries, volume 57. Little did I realise at that point that a stone book was, or would come to be known as, a blook. 

Earlier this evening I came across an article entitled Carved in Stone: American Stone Books by Ian Berke in the Maine Antique Digest (2015). The author had also written a guest post on Mindell Dubansky's blog, About Books - discovering the book as object.  

For more information ...

Was this delicious 'book cake' a 'blook'?