Happy New Year!
I'm writing this last thing on Thursday evening, still trying to catch up on sleep as we partied into the wee hours of New Year's Day, although I'm of an age now that there isn't much booze involved and we make sure the TV is on for the fireworks.
I've not been entirely unproductive as there was an obituary to write and I sidelined myself and wrote a lengthy piece on the history of newsprint rationing during the war. It was meant to be a couple of paragraphs to explain why magazines were able to appear while newspapers were still capped to six or so pages. As is often the case, it got away from me and went from two or three paragraphs to three pages.
Inspired by the Repair Shop and one or two online videos, I was inspired to repair an old Fontana Agatha Christie that I picked up on a trip into town. The cover was nice, not too creased, and it was one I didn't have. Unfortunately, the cover was also detached from the book and the lower third of the spine was missing. I recently bought some bookbinding glue that is clear when it dries and thought this was a good place to start before attacking some of my older books that have damage, but which a careful application of glue might save them for another generation.
As the covers of 1950s paperbacks (the Agatha was from 1959) were not much better than paper, I simply cut out a short strip of paper and glued that in place; once dried it meant that the cover had a complete spine to stick back onto the rest of the book. Once that was done and allowed to dry, it looked pretty good.
From the photo above you'll see that the repairs at the top and bottom of the spine is pretty obvious. I might experiment with a bit of acrylic paint to see if I can match the yellowed paper of the damaged bit of the spine, just to make the repair slightly less obvious, but I'm not too fussed as the book is intended for my shelf of Christie's rather than being offered for sale.
I've glued down a couple of flaps that have come loose on other books, but I want to practice on a few more books that I can live without before attacking something that's collectable or expensive.
My plans are to potter around for a couple more days and then get back to work next week. Hopefully, that means news of the next couple of Bear Alley Books' projects can be announced in the not-too-distant future.
Have a fantastic 2025, everyone, and I'll hopefully see lots of you at book fairs and comic swap meets over the next few months.
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