Thursday, January 26, 2006

Book worms

"Books are the basis of our cultural heritage. Some may influence our world view or even shape our lives. Many of our childhood memories have to do with the books that we read or that were read to us. We identify those who are like us, and understand their inner world, by the books they read. We approach a book as we approach a work of art or a meeting with a new acquaintance, bringing with us our knowledge and experience, and during the encounter - in the course of reading - an intimate relationship is formed between ourselves and the book. The words stimulate our senses and engage our emotions. We see in our mind's eye the characters and places described. We hear their sounds and smell their scents - but we smell the paper, too, and stroke the pages and the covers, and some readers even 'taste' the book by moistening their finger to turn the pages."
From 'Beauty and the Book', an exhibition at the Israel Museum last year.

This piece, by Matej Kren, is called Idiom. The tower is constructed from thousands of books, collected from libraries and publishers. This and more extraordinary photos of the book tunnel are at BookLust.

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