Hello everyone,
Oversized books.
Why do they exist? Not only are they difficult to photograph, their weight is legendary, containing the ability to totally kill a guy by falling off the top shelf. Oversized books are weapons against the tidy structure of regular-sized shelving. You can only fit a few or so in a shipping box before it becomes entirely unliftable. Taschen alone is responsible for decimating forests worth of paper, and ruining the backs of many postmen. Yet they remain so alluring, so beautiful. Crack one of these BBW tomes and you’ll be overwhelmed like David entering the Stargate during 2001’s finale. The colours are so bright! The paper such quality. Gloss is their wily game. In a bookshop, standing before one of these beauties and a ratty paperback of To Kill a Mockingbird it is hard to choose between practical reading and sensational reproductions of paintings or huge plates of buildings. Bookseller’s can’t stand oversized books on the whole. Yet we buy them. You buy them. We are mad here, suffering beneath the weight of such mass and quality. Today we have oversized books on offer.
We usually ignore them when cataloguing because why on earth would we want to lift these things on a Monday morning? We pile them in the “to be catalogued” pile, only to guiltily look at them during a psychotic New Years Resolution phase of our workyear, a phase such as this past week. Pulling all of them out, we shake our heads thinking how lazy we can be, how slothful. They are so beautiful and we are so unworthy. How could we ignore such collectible titles? We’re not kidding either. Cooper was simply dwarfed by the size of our office stack. A single volume fell to the side with a THWACK and she hid beneath the couch for half-a-day, fearing the Furniture Apocalypse brought on by 130 pound paper. It woke the baby too. These poor simple animals. They do not understand the SOPHISTICATION of art books. Lenore just puts them in her mouth. Snackers just growls. All of this power held in an art object, content be damned. You could build a house with them? But why? Why why why?
We offer them now to you. Years of oversized books placed inconspicuously on our bottom shelves, ignored by reasonable customers, loved only by us. We shall move them no more. We shall sell them. Their fascination will be enjoyed by you. You can do it. You are strong. You have experienced much. You can lift these books no problem. Do not be afraid. Pile them correctly and they’ll do no harm.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa
