I despair for the long term of the physical book, but apparently not equally as much as Veronika Teuber. The German-born designer spends her times on the decrease East Side preserving her library in beeswax.

"I was at a lecture in early '97," she said. "They were talking about publishing books in the past, existing and how it will be in the future. It will be an incredibly unfortunate day for me if books are not released any more. The electronic format isn't interesting to me. The electronic book is at all times the same."

At the chance of sounding past tense, I'd need to agree. Physical books have personality, presence. Some even have their personal peculiar scent, like people. I just lately picked up the two-volume "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes" at a used-book sale. When I brought it dwelling and opened it, the fragrance of the previous owner's pipe rose from its pages. the number of eBooks offer that?

The attraction of the book starts using the body fat of the item in your hands. The book could be lovely in its personal right¡ªregardless of whether the writing life up for the include and also top quality of the printing. however the most important sensation I get is of control. Your personal computer or Kindle or iPad can run out of juice from an individual moment in time for the next. Chinese hackers with nothing improved to do could possibly delete your total electronic library having a single keystroke. Or you could drop it in the tub.

She said she has sold a few of the waxed works at prices ranging from $600 to $800.The latter could transpire having a book, too. however the value of replacing a paperback isn't as onerous as that of buying a new Nook. In any case, my relationship having a book is extra personal than with an electronic device. It's a friend instead than a temperamental acquaintance, something that doesn't need coddling. (I'm not suggesting that Kindles et al. are completely with no merit. having a number of clicks, my brother, a classics scholar, can download books which have been out of print for centuries from university libraries around the world. And they're convenient on subways, so long as nobody would like to take it from you.)

Ms. Teuber, 67 years old, isn't as flaky as she may well initially sound. The modest East Third Street apartment she shares with her husband, Anthony Biancucci, a graphic designer, is filled with favorite books she has no intention of waxing¡ªLawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet," for example; and Proust.

She's also the first to be thankful for the inherent irony of her enterprise. "I can't truly read them anymore," she said of her library in aspic. Indeed, she admits that the mummification process gives her pause. "I really feel very bad during the first aqueous beeswax phase," she said.

She melts the polish in a double boiler, then makes use of a paintbrush to coat the cover, binding, pages. "The moment in time I get it done i realize I can't open the book anymore, plus it is painful."

Teuber's defense, she's adding extra for the process than she's subtracting. the outcomes regularly are beautiful. She selects books that instinctively entice her¡ªbe it because of the shape, color, size, content or simply expected to intuition. "It's like when i really do a portrait," said the artist, who divides her time involving Manhattan and a studio near Limoges in France. "The deal with has got to have an attraction to me. the identical having a book."

She said she visits this french language flea markets in search of 19th-century volumes. an individual of her best finds arrived when she moved into her personal home, a past chapel, and discovered 66 well-worn prayer books, turning them right into a single sculptural piece.

The effect of the work seems a combination of a book's inherent individuality and also manner in which the designer chooses to embellish it. For some reason, I certainly not thought to check with Ms. Teuber whether she had children. These books really feel like the kids of a loving mother, who sets limits but doesn't suffocate them. They're used as they come; each one's personality permitted to flourish.

With some volumes she embosses the beeswax. She paints patterns on others, several with hidden messages in florescent paint that glow in the dark. She even drilled a hole as a result of an individual that she felt was insufficiently transformed by the sealing process. Ms. Teuber estimates she's preserved extra than 600 books¡ªhalf of them here, half at her dwelling in France, and about thirty with her dealer in Germany. She said she's sold 80 volumes at prices ranging from $600 to $800.

"On the an individual hand, engineering is fantastic," she observed. "On the other hand, if you transpire to have an apartment and also book shelves are useless and there's an individual Kindle standing there, that is depressing."

She has no ideas to stop beeswaxing, in the identical way that most of the people with extra conventional libraries think of them as organic, works in progress. "As long as I'll be alive," she vowed, "I'll do the waxed books."