Why has the term “handmade” become shorthand for “unattractive, poorly assembled, and utterly unnecessary”? Apparently how-to publication reviews have become my forum for social commentary, and this one, “Creating Handmade Books” by Alisa Golden, is not an exception. It seems that the American craftperson has vanished, and the tradition rests heavily on the shoulders of society’s sole remaining practitioners: resolute five-year-olds churning out handmade valentines and macaroni necklaces.
This is not a mere attempt to shake my cane at rosy memories of yesteryear—it’s about my concern regarding the inability of individuals in industrialized nations to make meaningful contributions toward their own survival. Seriously, how many of the items and services that support your daily life could you produce and perform yourself?
Whether books count as survival items depends on your level of willingness to confess your nerdiness, but the fact that you’re reading this indicates some level of commitment to written communication, so I’ll share with you a secret of literary preservation: Golden’s books, both the instruction manual and the handmade art it describes, are useful and relatively attractive. “Creating Handmade Books” provides detailed instructions for an extensive and sophisticated collection of paper folding and book binding techniques as well as related projects and embellishments.
Golden is comfortable and apt in writing distilled free verse, but the epigraphic language that anchors her poetry is less effective as traditional text, particularly as it composes the eight-page preface which reads like some combination of autobiography, curriculum vitae, and diary. Luckily, the personal details of the author’s life trajectory from a aimless, nineteen-year-old Berkeley poet to a wife, mother, teacher, artist, and author soon yield to useful lists of suggestions, materials, terms, and techniques, and the rest of the book remains concise and accessible.
For a book about the art of making books, however, the publication’s layout is surprisingly awkward and prosaic. Most projects begin and end mid-page, making it difficult to construct something (particularly a project requiring needles, glue, and two hands) while consulting the book’s instructions simultaneously. The text is also oddly justified, leaving large, blank spaces on foredges while words disappear into the depths of the back margins.
Nevertheless, the extensive illustrations of Golden’s various handmade creations are inspiring and otherwise forgive the presentation. The multidimensional, multimedia word and image collages breathe imagination into the intricate skills described, and Golden is an artist who cites her sources for readers who wish to learn more. It is refreshing to read a handicraft book that skips the scrapbooking gadgetry isle at the local mega-art supply store and details an actual creative process and functional product. For those interested in reviving the art of handmade papercraft, “Creating Handmade Books” provides useful techniques and unique designs. While you may not have enough self-preservation skills to survive a complete collapse of societal and economic infrastructure, you can at least leave behind a one-of-a-kind document asserting your once-upon-a-time existence...