Posted on August 21, 2015 at 12:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Quite a few books that aren’t your typical volume hit the news this week.
Image credit: lizzthelibrarian.com
They started off philanthropically, with “The Drinkable Book.” Each page of this work in progress is meant to be torn out and used as a filter.
In a similar vein came “Mi papi estuvo en la selva” (“My Father was in the Jungle”), which can be planted when kids are done reading it.
You read that right. Seeds of the Jacaranda tree are embedded in the pages.
Then came literally deadly books.
Michigan State University owns the only complete copy of “Shadows from the Walls of Death,” a book made of wallpaper pieces. The wallpaper (which is no longer being produced, thanks to "Shadows") contains a pigment that’s both poisonous and easily spread into the air.
We also caught a glimpse of advanced book technology from eras past and present.
The website Medievalbooks took a look at the ways our pre-Renaissance ancestors protected their books from theft: chains, chests, and curses.
Fast-forward several hundred years, and you’ve got a book so complicated that there’s an app for it: Iain Pears' "Arcadia," which he began with the intention of supplementing it with programming.
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