The Enduring and Evolving Codex

Is the end of the book near? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boldy claims in his talk with the Washington Post that "In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down" and there will be "no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network." Though talking particularly about newspapers and magazines there are many who would include the future of the book in his assessment. While I agree that newspapers in there current state are doomed, magazines less so, the book will continue its reign as a premier mode of content delivery. Yes, there is a good possibility that most book content will be available digitally in the next 10 years but this will simply be a complement to the printed book not a replacement.

Before we continue with the funeral arrangements Joyce at Bibliophile Bullpen reminds us that printed book is most enduring media element in the history of mankind.

Here is how it stacks up:

CD-ROMs are estimated to last from 30 to 200 years.
CD-Rs, before they are recorded, have an estimated shelf life of five to ten years.
CD-Rs, after recording, estimated 70 to 200 years.
CD-RWs are expected to last at least 30 years.
Photo CDs have an expected life of over 100 years.
Magnetic tape has a life of 30 to 100 years
Hard drives expected to last 114 to 170 years
A vinyl record has a life span of 100 years
Solid state drives last about 145 Years

while The Archimedes Palimpsest, written on parchment in the codex form, has survived since the second half of the tenth century!

For a comprehensive look at how the codex is evolving in today's world there is the newly published 500 Handmade Books : Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form from Lark Books.


500 Handmade Books is a visual journey through the world of contemporary book arts. The only requirement is for each piece to "function like a book." The books were chosen by Steve Miller who studied under legendary book artist and teacher Walter Hamady and teaches in the book arts program at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The book is a stunning testament to the book form and to the artists who continue to find in the book a means to communicate.

Book Details:
500 Handmade Books: Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form. New York: Lark Books, 2008. First Edition. 8" X 8". 419pp. Pictorial french-fold wraps. Illustrated in color. $24.95

Book available here

'The Writing's On The Wall' : Art Meets Language

SHIRIN NESHAT -Rebellious Silence (1994)
Black and white RC print and ink, 27.9 x 35.6 cm.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

The current issue of ArtAsiaPacific features an in depth look at artists who employ text in their work.

Articles include:

-A great piece on contemporary calligraphy in China, "Square Words, Round Paradigms" by Eric Wear.

-A look at Yoko Ono's embrace of online communities (Ono averages 200 new 'friends' on MySpace a day) by HG Masters.

-Gregory Galligan's looks at Islamic text-based art in his piece, "Architecture in Script: From Without Boundaries to Archive Fever," and includes Shirin Neshat whose iconic work appears above.

Also in this issue is Eliza Gluckman's profile of Sharmini Pereira and her publishing imprint, Raking Leaves, which focuses exclusively on artists using the printed book as the medium.

It is refreshing to see how widespread the use of language, and the book for that matter, is in contemporary art. These new avenues of textual consumption expand the boundaries of reading and offer us fresh ways to make sense of the world.

Related: previous Book Patrol post : "The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art"

Blood on Paper : Books in the Hand of Artists

"At a time when the notion of the book is challenged by the advent of the screen and computer, this exhibition aims to show the extraordinary ways in which the book has been treated by leading artists of today and the recent past. Blood on Paper will focus on new and contemporary work, and on books where the artist has been the driving force in conception and design." --from the Introduction to the exhibit.

Most notable artists of the 20th and 21st century have used the book form as a vehicle. No matter what their primary artistic leaning (painting, sculpture, drawing, installation) is the conceptual framework of the book has drawn each into its grasp.

Anselm Kiefer The Secret Life of Plants

Many of the heavyweights of Modern Art are included in the show and the power of the book object shines through in works ranging from the grandeur of Anselm Kiefer's 'Secret Life of Plants' to the minimalist work of Edward Ruscha and Sol Lewitt to the remains of conceptual artist Cai Guo Qiang's piece 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

Cai Guo Qiang 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

The exhibit runs through June 28th at the Victoria & Albert Museum and is a must see for those planning to be or living in and around London.

The V&A's worthy online feature on Artists' Books.
Senior curator Dr. Rowan Watson's essay on the exhibit (pdf).
Michael Glovers piece in the London Times, "Blood on Paper: art goes under covers."

Selection of previous Book Patrol posts on Books and Artists :

'The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art'
'Books to Be Desired : Penelope Umbrico's Private Residence'
'The Book That Didn't Get Built'
'Contemporary Artists Tackle Their Favorite Books'

Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books

Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers is pleased to announce an exhibition of the work of Barbara Hodgson. “Barbara Hodgson: Other Ways of Seeing Books” will run from March 6 through April 30, 2008. Please join us for a reception for the artist on Thursday, April 3, from 6-8pm.

Barbara Hodgson is a writer, book designer and photographer based in Vancouver, BC. She is the author and designer of four acclaimed illustrated novels; each a combination of good storytelling augmented with archival photographs, antique postcards, and rare engravings. Her non-fiction work includes her recent publication, Trading in Memories, 2007, an illustrated diary of her journeys as a world traveler, picking up bits and pieces of discarded material culture.

Her work has also been published in fine press limited editions by Heavenly Monkey Press in Vancouver, BC. Out of print titles include Good & Evil in the Garden and Expressed: Ten Philatelic Fictions. Her most recent work is The Temperamental Rose and Other Ways of Seeing Color, 2007, with noted Seattle bookbinder Claudia Cohen. This collaboration began during their first meeting in the summer of 2006, when they discovered mutual passions for color wheels and other systems for charting and codifying colors.

For the present exhibition, Hodgson has created a keepsake entitled The Temperamental Rose: An Experiment with Light. Each copy of the pamphlet is hand-colored with a selection of lightfast and fugitive watercolors. It is designed to be exposed to the sun over a period of a year to demonstrate the effect of light on pigments. The keepsake is available in a signed, limited edition of sixty copies.

Books and History in the Work of Nicola Dale

Time creates history and time changes history. From existing texts visual artist Nicola Dale painstakingly carves a new history, both for the texts themselves and for the those of us lucky enough to consume them.

A Secret Heliotropism, 2006. Hand cut found book; full color, 320 pages

Using a Walter Benjamin quote from his ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ as a starting point Dale took a copy of “The People’s Century” and a very small pair of scissors and transformed the 320 page history book from a mass produced object to a unique piece of book art. Over the course of a year, each page was hand cut into a leaf pattern so that "the leaves (pun intended) stretch out from the book towards a source of natural sunlight, as though the book itself were growing and changing in the same way history does."

"The leaves I had created were a reminder of the book’s historical origins: trees turned to paper and symbolically back again. The work also has its own secret mechanism, as I created a pattern which allows the pages to be folded down flat and put back into their cover to transform once more into an ordinary looking book."

Telling the Truth About History, But Not About the Past, 2007
altered hardback book, book jacket measures 16cm x 21.5cm

Dale deals with time a little differently in this amazing work:

The Book That Reads Itself, 2007

10cm x 28cm x 15cm

"Once upon a time there will only be the book which reads itself.."

Here it is not so much history but the future that concerns Dale. Will time and technology continue its onslaught on the physical book? As readership continues it decline will books need to ultimately engage themselves to fulfill their mission?

"The artist's books I make (part of a wider artistic practice) deal with the themes of originality, authorship and repetition not because I think everything has already been said, but because there is always something to add to the conversation, by way of a little rearrangement to the order of things."

This is good stuff!

Dale at Axisweb
Piece in issue 5 of STATIC the web resource of the London Consortium
Dale at Artists Books Online
short Q&A with Dale at artselector

'The Cedar Branch Chronicle' by Jocelyn Curry

Seattle: 2007. One-of-a-kind. Sculpture, mixed media; Yellow cedar, watercolor and laser images on paper. Designed specifically for its location at Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers. // For 'The Cedar Branch Chronicle', Curry collected one natural artifact and one man-made artifact during her daily walk. Without any self-imposed rules other than scale, upon returning, a watercolor 'journal-entry' composition was created from these found objects on a uniform 3-1/2 x 7" card. The thirty-one daily paintings are suspended from a dramatic 17-foot long cedar branch found on the shores of Puget Sound near the artist's home. The finished installation is essentially an alternative book-form, the paintings/pages free to be touched, and turned by the viewer, allowing for a rather kinetic experience of the author/artist's 'illustrated diary' of her daily ritual over the course of July, 2007

An artist book, The 31 Journal Pages of the Cedar Branch Chronicle: A Book of Days by Jocelyn Curry, was published in an edition of 31 copies to accompany the exhibition.

'The Cedar Branch Chronicle' is a tremendous piece and one that clearly exudes Curry's deep sense of place. The combination of the man-made found object with the natural artifact is tastefully and elegantly presented. By pairing the found with the natural Curry skillfully transforms the negative weight of the human litter that populates our natural world into a digestible form. Magically, it somehow becomes something we can live with.

It's sure nice having this hanging around the shop.

Other work from the exhibit can be seen here.

Be sure to click on top and side image to enlarge.

Binding the Booker Prize

Binding: Lester Capon for 'Animal's People' by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster),

Designer Bookbinders was founded over 50 years ago to promote the craft of fine bookbinding.

Since 1991 their members have been creating beautiful unique bindings for the 6 shortlisted novels for Booker Prize.

Here's how it works:

"The binder...has only four to five weeks to read, design and bind their book (with a container). The books must be ready in time for the night of the final prize announcement, when each bound novel is presented to its author at the famous 'Booker dinner'."

Wouldn't it be great if we had something similar for our National Book Award?

Here are this years bindings which are on display at the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum through January 2008:

Binding: Rachel Ward-Sale for 'Darkmans' by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)

Binding: Faith Shannon for 'The Gathering' by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape),

Binding : Stephen Conway for 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)

Binding: Christopher Shaw for 'Mister Pip' by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)

Binding: Peter Jones for 'On Chesil Beach' by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)

FUEL That's Good for the Planet

FUEL is the London design firm of Damon Murray & Stephen Sorrell.

In 2005 they launched FUEL publishing and their latest title brings to print a selection of amazing images from the noteworthy blog BibliOdyssey. The book is titled BibliOdyssey: Amazing Archival Images From The Internet

"BibliOdyssey’s mission has been to search the dustier corners of the internet and retrieve these materials for our enjoyment. Thanks to the efforts of this singular weblog, a myriad of long-forgotten imagery has now resurfaced. Each of these fascinating images is accompanied by a commentary from PK, author and curator of BibliOdyssey, and a link to the source website."

Book Patrol puts it on the: Top Shelf.

The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art

"Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles"

Liu Yi (1017-1086)

Xu Bing. Book From the Sky
1987-91
Mixed media installation / Hand-printed books and scrolls printed from blocks inscribed with ''false'' characters.

Huang Yong Ping The History of Chinese Painting and a Concise History of Modern Painting Washed in a Washing Machine for Two Minutes
1987-1993
Chinese teabox, paper pulp, glass

In the art world there are few genres as hot as Contemporary Chinese Art and in Chinese Contemporary Art there are few objects as important as the book.

The quote above from Liu Yi begins Wu Hung's introduction to the catalog of the seminal exhibition Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art which he curated for the China Institute and which is currently on view, albeit in a condensed form at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
through December 2.

Hung, who also curates the exhibit, is the Harriet H. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Chicago, and his introduction is a must read for those who want to understand the importance of the book in Chinese cultural.

The exhibit is a who's who of Contemporary Chinese Art featuring over 20 artists, and their "book-related experiments," including work by Xu Bing, Cai Guo-Qiang, Huang Yong Ping, Song Dong, Hong Hao and Wenda Gu.

Many pieces are inspired by the traditional book materials like calligraphy, paper and ink, all essential materials of Chinese culture, and many are reactions to the power and potential danger inherent in the book object.

There is simply too much great stuff here to cover in one post. The two images included here are considered masterworks of the genre. Both began in the late 1980's as Cultural Revolution was fading. Neither artist still lives in China.

The curator Wu Hung will be a giving a talk at the Seattle Asian Art Museum this Thursday.
If you live anywhere near Seattle the exhibit is worth a visit.

Video of Wu Hung's talk about the exhibit at the China Institute
Review of exhibition by Bridget L Goodbody in the New York Times; Defending the Printed Page as the New China Stirred

Book Patrol will feature other artists whose book works appear in the exhibition in the coming weeks

The Growing Bestiary of Briony Morrow-Cribbs

The "Cabinets of Curiosity" of the 16th and 17th century is the jumping off point for Morrow-Cribbs. These rooms of mythical constructs blur the boundary of fact and fiction, where the real and the imagined share the stage.

Morrow-Cribs says she "uses the mediums of print and the book arts (and occasionally ceramics) to create a graphic connection between the recognizable 'real' world and my invisible, 'fantasy' world.

Her latest project is providing 11 aquatint prints to accompany the first book publication of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's prose poem Iskandariya. The book is designed and published by Rollin Milroy at Heavenly Monkey.

Milroy says the poem offers "a perfect companion for Briony's growing bestiary of anthropomorphically jumbled creatures."

Millroy and Heavenly Monkey continue their ascent to the top of the fine press world with each book taking us on a quality journey utilizing the most creative artists, writers and book makers this region has to offer. I have yet to be disappointed.

Morrow-Cribbs, the daughter of two artists, has yet to leave her twenties so settle in, this journey is just beginning.

We are delighted to host an exhibit of the work of Briony Morrow-Cribbs to coincide with the release of Iskandariya. The exhibit runs through Halloween. For those who can't make it here is the online version.

"We, Too, are Book Artists" An Exhibition of African American Book Art

Hats off to The Minnesota Center for Book Arts for putting this one together. It is being curated by Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. and is being hailed as the first ever exhibit focusing solely on the work of African American book artists.

The show contains the work of over 20 black book artists from across the nation.

As one would hope, the show conveys a "strong social justice theme."

MCBA Director Jeff Rathermel says of the shows participants:

They're putting forth strong messages, either from a social perspective or a personal perspective..But there's a sincerity in the work that shines through. And if you, as a reader and viewer, can look at something and know that the artist feels very strongly about it, but puts it in a context that you can understand, that's where the real power of the art comes through

Bisa Washington. In The Event Anyone Disappears 1988
Sewn leather binding; beads and mixed media

Dindga McCannon. A Week in the Life of a Black Woman Artist 2006. Accordion binding; over dyed cotton fabric, paint, beads, photo transfers, angelina fibers and found materials.



Marianne Combs piece at Minnesota Public Radio, while your there you can also listen to the piece.

Censored Book

Censored Book
Barton Lidice Benes
26.7 x 20.3 12.7
1974
Book Tied in Rope, nailed, gessoed and painted

"I was once on a train to Philadelphia reading a biography of Nixon, and I started scratching it out as I read it, and by the time I got to Philadelphia I had scratched the whole book out. After that I started nailing books shut and tying them up."

The piece appeared in the 1990 traveling exhibition Book Arts in the USA curated by Richard Minsky.

Thanks to Deeplinking and his post Book Art All-Stars

Buy - Dry - Read

This is Paolo Orsacchini's striking design for a limited anniversary edition of the Italian publication of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

The book comes wet. Soaked in sea water then sealed in a nice clear pouch.

Luckily, the paper is waterproof so if you want to read it you simply set the book out in the sun. Let it dry then read.

I haven't been able to find out much about the book details, like size of the edition and retail price, but the image and the story have been deservedly making the rounds of the design blogs.

The concept alone puts it in the same class of the limited edition of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 which was published in 1953. The edition consisted of 200 signed and numbered copies bound in a form of asbestos! Collectible copies today sell for around $15,000.

The high-end Jules Verne collectors are going to be tempted to buy two copies of this edition, one to buy and hold and one to buy and dry.

Shelf Talk: The Sorted Books Project of Nina Katchadourian

Since 1993 Nina Katchadourian has assembled more than 130 "book clusters" for both private libraries and public collections.

She gets there by "culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom. The final results are shown either as photographs of the book clusters or as the actual stacks themselves."

The photo above is from a group of clusters titled BookPace she did for San Antonio collector and art patron Linda Pace.

She has also created clusters for the journal of art and poetics Shark, the Strindberg Museum in Stockholm, the Akron Art Museum and the Athenaeum Arts and Music Library in La Jolla, CA.

The potential for these visual mashups remains great. One can see this being a next generation functionality for the book social networking sites; 2.0 stuff.

A generation of 'spine poets' is born.

























Thanks to Your Daily Awesome for the lead

Biblio-Ceramics: The Work of Steven M. Allen

Allen's medium of choice is recycled newspapers and magazines that are mixed with a slurry of reclaimed clay.

He then turns these newly formed newspaper pages into pages of books, globes, mechanical components and human figures. From these four recurring elements his work is born and Allen's exploration of the "impact of information, technology, knowledge and globalization on both individual and universal levels" begins. His goal is to "recontextualize contemporary issues inspired by articles in the same recycled newspapers and magazines."

In his work one can see how books form the foundation of Allen's attempt to make sense of the world.

New World
Fruits of Labor


Agents of Change

one also gets a sense of the tremendous weight of knowledge and the struggle to create something positive from its pursuit.

Another theme Allen works with is the global ramifications of a knowledge based society.

In Allen's recent piece Allowances and Tolerances he takes a "common term used in machining to define the permissible limit of variation and brings it into a social context. The text is taken from the Machinist’s Handbook and combined with text from Will Durant’s The History of Civilization. It is brought together in one book to make a comment on the global need for societal and cross-cultural tolerance."

I asked Allen about this combining of history of technology to illuminate the need for global tolerance and he offered this "Allowances and Tolerances is the first of what might be a series of pieces that take terminology from technology handbooks and bring them into a social context. I was a machinist for many years and was struck by machining terms that have a different social meaning when taken out of context. I am all for more tolerance in the world."





And then there is Grandpa which is a distinct departure from his other work. Here the book is alone and not entwined with other symbolism. It is more of a book art piece. The dominate image being a tractor and a number of pages suspended in the air. It lacks the struggle inherent in his other pieces this sort of idyllic agrarian imagery, with the wavy pages (amber waves of grain) and the tractor imagery seems out of place. Allen says of this piece "Grandpa is a piece of my own history. When I think of my grandpa, I think of the Ford tractor he used to ride around on...The book started from a photograph I took of his tractor, then I added some images and text I found online to supplement it. I considered sculpting a tractor to move through the pages the way the globe does in other pieces , but ultimatelty wanted the images on the pages to be unobstructed."


Steven M. Allen's website
Clay's Flickr page

"Philip Smith: Extraordinary Bindings From an Englishman"

Opening this month at the Multnomah County Library in Portland is an exhibition of the work of the pre-eminent bookbinder Philip Smith. An opening reception and illustrated lecture by Philip Smith is on May 19; the exhibition continues through July 11, 2007.

Philip Smith is one of today's most unusual and extraordinary bookbinders, often using unorthodox materials and approaches. He is a past President of Designer Bookbinders and has written and lectured extensively on bookbinding. Books include The Book: Art & Object (1982) and New Directions in Bookbinding (1974). The exhibition combines materials from public and private collections as well as from his own collection in England.

(Image of Finnegan's Wake binding from the gallery at the Society of Bookbinders.)

Book Arts Roundup: JAB, Kiefer, Buzz, Bindings and Hidy

It is nice to see JAB (Journal of Book Arts) being published again. After a few year hiatus issue 21 has just been released. The journal is now being published by Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts and is "Still dedicated to providing a forum for critical, theoretical, and creative engagement with artists’ books". A highlight of the new issue is Elisabeth Long's article Editioning One-of-a-Kind Multiples: Notes Toward An Understanding of Anselm Kiefer’s Books
I concur that the display of Keifer's book art (or book art as a whole) has suffered from museum curators not having the experience of displaying or a deep knowledge of book art. She also talks about how Keifer's pieces are unique yet part of one narrative. "The very use of the book structure implies an interest in narrative, but Keifer's visual narratives progress at an extremely slow rate." Of course another reason for the "extremely slow rate" is that Keifer's book pieces are huge. The piece discussed in the article "The Secret Life of Plants" has pages that are over 6.5 feet tall and almost 5 feet wide and are made of lead. :)



Buzz Spector's installation "The Big Red C" is on view at the Hirshland Gallery in Cornell's Kroch Library. The Big Red C" is a large architectural construction made entirely out of books written by people associated with Cornell University were Spector teaches. The exhibit premiered in New York in January

Ithaca Times article and interview with Spector






While we are in upstate New York The University of Rochester Rare Books & Special Collections has a stunning online exhibit titled "Beauty for Commerce: Publisher's Bindings 1830-1910. It is based on the tangible exhibit of the same name that took place in 2002.
What is a publisher's binding?
The first book covers that were designed and made with the masses in mind.
Don't miss the chance to play with the magnifying box that accompanies each larger image.

Thanks to Japonisme for the lead






Graphic artist Lance Hidy is designing the new Ansel Adams book “Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs” that is due at in the fall. His own typeface, Penumbra, will be featured in the titles and captions for the book (the typeface has also appeared on posters for the movie version of “The Da Vinci Code” ). Hidy's first high profile job was designing “Yosemite and the Range of Light” with Adams in 1978. He also took part in the selection of the photos to be included.
Article from the Daily News of NewburyPort with much on on Hidy's relationship with Adams.

Poster is a portrait of Barry Moser

Book Arts Roundup

The Arion Press Gallery is hosting an exhibit of 22 embroidered bindings by Jill Oriane Tarlau. "Her signature is her exquisitely detailed embroidery, which she incorporates into the design of each uniquely sized, leather-bound book cover". Heidi Benson's review in SF Chronicle




Post-Katrina book art. Degrees of Separation is a postcard publication of responses from designers and graphic artists who have a connection to New Orleans. 5% of proceeds will go towards the AIGA New Orleans Design Educational Fund.

Thanks to That Ain't Art for the lead




University of Cincinnati has an online exhibit called "The Shape of the Book". Starts with a cuneiform ca. 2048 BCE and ends with a 1998 cd-rom of a copy of the 1640 London edition of Shakespeare's Poems. Not the best looking or designed online exhibit but worth a trip through.

Thanks to fade theory for the lead


The Alcuin Society has just announced the winners of the 25th Annual Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada

A Passion for Word & Image: Books by Enid Mark

An exhibition celebrating the work of Philadelphia book artist Enid Mark is at the University of Washington Libraries through May 28. Founded in 1986, ELM Press publishes finely crafted limited editions that feature hand-lithography, letterpress printing, and archival hand binding.

From the begninning Mark's books were distinguished by subtle colors and shapes, each book having a unique character, blending text and image seamlessly. Mark's images dance across the page, expand to the edges and ignore the normal boundaries of "illustrated" books. Many of the items are on loan from the book artist herself.

The exhibition is at Suzzallo Library, room 102, as well as the Special Collections lobby. A talk and exhibit visit with Mark is scheduled for April 19 at 7:00pm.

Seattle Edible Book Festival

This Sunday, April 1, is the Seattle Annual Edible Book Festive, "Cook The Books"! The Festival is free if you bring an edible book or $5 to come see all the entries and enjoy the consumption of them at the end of the afternoon. It's an event that unites bibliophiles, book artists, and food lovers. The Festival is being held this year at 826 Seattle, 8414 Greenwood Avenue North at 1:00pm(with an edible entry) or 2:00pm (without an entry).

826 Seattle is a nonprofit tutoring and writing center to help youth, ages 6-18, with their writing skills. It is one of 6 national chapters co-founded by McSweeney's founder and author Dave Eggers.

Amazingly, the local Seattle festival is part of the International Edible Book Festival held around the world on April 1. April 1st is the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his book Physiologie du goût, a witty meditation on food. April fools' day is also the perfect day to eat your words and play with them as the "books" are consumed on the day of the event.