holding touching flicking smelling seeing

I just wandered around our local Borders store - closing down on 15 August - selecting a pile of books because everything was fifty percent off. In some ways, this is like a dream come true, but in other ways it felt horrible. Maybe this is silly, to be sad about the death of one cog in a big chain, when really we should be lamenting the loss of independent bookshops with personality. But really at the moment it seems like bookshops are all in the fight against the internet together.

Someone turned to me as we stared at the row of Henry Jameses, and said: "In some ways I feel like this is my fault. I've bought an e-reader last year and haven't visited a bookshop since. I mean, what's the point? Even with fifty percent off these books are still cheaper as e-books."

Since I finished my Masters, I've been working a couple of part-time jobs almost entirely from home. My jobs consist of writing emails and writing a manual, for the most part. In some ways it's been great having the flexibility to work from home, when I want. But I have now reached the point at which I realise that I could stay inside all day if I wanted to. I actually have to decide to leave the house. Almost everything I need is available on the internet or by phone. It's almost Orwellian.

If e-books become the norm, is this just one more step in the process towards becoming permanent stay-at-homers? Are they just another excuse to avoid actually having to talk to people, or deal with people, whenever we want to get more reading matter - whether it's at a library, a big chain, a classy independent bookstore, or a dingy little secondhand bookstore?

And if e-books take over the market entirely, which I have no doubt they will, what will happen to the bookshop? What will happen to publishing companies, and opportunities for authors, and the standard of literature? Will bestsellers reign supreme and the only chance an author has to be recognised is to wallow among the millions on the Kindle store?

On the upside, it might be more difficult to ban books if they are available freely on the internet. And I went through a phase of declaring that perhaps the e-reader was a good idea (it is), and perhaps it was worth having, right after I had to lug all my books with me when I moved house. Too heavy!

But now I'm starting to wonder if the price we pay is not too high. I'm probably just being reactionary, but I LIKE visiting bookstores. They have an environment you can find in very few places. I LIKE collecting books with colourful spines and arranging them thematically on my bookshelf. And no doubt tomorrow's generations won't know what they're missing and will be perfectly happy with their e-readers, but I will know, and I'll be sad. So from now on it's paper and ink for me.

bookmark the second

I've already done what I threatened. This is how I made a pretty bookmark!

Materials:
1 metre beading wire
1 particularly pretty Venetian glass bead
1 tube of other beads in complementary colours

Also some tiny metal bead-thingys (I'm sure there's a name for them but I can't remember it). You will need four for this bookmark.
Some pliers to squash them with, to hold the beads in place:

Cut the piece of wire to your desired specifications. It should be roughly long enough to sit in place in a book with beaded sections hanging out on either side.

Scrutinise your beads.
Think hard.
Start creating!
Once you have a short chain of beads that you are happy with, squeeze in place another metal-thingy to stop the beads from slithering up and down the wire.
Place the bookmark in a normally-sized book. At the other end of the wire, squeeze on another metal-thingy (I really need a better name for this) for the next little chain of beads.
Then start threading again! I made the second chain slightly shorter and used slightly smaller beads than the other one, but it's completely up to you.

When finished, squeeze on the last metal-thingy, and cut the wire off at the ends.
Ta-dah!


I christen thee, o bookmark .... any ideas???? 'Helga' is running through my head and blanking out any other possible names, so I'm going to need some help.

** I bought the beads and other materials at Beadz Unlimited, an awesome beads shop at the Christchurch Arts Centre (awesome even though they have, for some reason, decided it was a good idea to sell an earthquake-ravaged house as a charm bracelet bead). If you're ever in town you should definitely have a look. **

merry Christmas to me

For Christmas, my flatmate gave me this little bookmark, which she bought at a craft fair. It's made of brightly-coloured, large beads, threaded (and held in place) on an elastic which hooks around the book holding your place.

At first I was a little doubtful because I don't use bookmarks usually. Instead, I just throw in an old receipt or something, because, when I lose it, it won't matter. But now I am sold! I love bookmarks! They're pretty! Especially bookmarks like this, which are practical and don't mess up the book or get squashed or lost easily, et cetera.

It actually looks pretty simple to make, and so I started wondering if there were equally pretty bookmark ideas out there? Internet search engine, here I come. Of course, I had to wade through a whole bunch of "easy bookmark for kids" websites, but here are a couple of pages that have some gorgeous ideas, some of which I plan to try:

This was the best of the webpages - it links to 38 different bookmark ideas, with photos, and they all look very pretty and very polished but also achievable:
http://tipnut.com/make-bookmarks/

If you can do tatting (I have no idea what it is but assume it's something like crochet, which I can't do!), this is quite a pretty bookmark:
http://www.craftown.com/tat/pat17.htm

And I quite liked this idea for a beaded bookmark. Don't be put off by the phrase "teen crafts":
http://parentingteens.about.com/od/schoolcrafts/ss/bookmark1.htm

The best of British luck to you! I will keep you posted on my own attempts at bookmark creation.