‘Writing In Books’ is my response to a brief about the nature of books. What I love most about books is they are able to be passed on. Not just forwarded or redownloaded – each book is a physical object that can be travel from person to person, and it becomes even more pronounced when a book has an inscription in it. My concept was to produce a book of these found notes. The final result is a hand-bound hardcover book that contains spreads from 60 books that had all sorts of inscriptions in them. From the introduction: “Ever since our little hands worked out how to hold a crayon, we’ve been told not to make marks inside books. ‘Treat them with respect,’ they said, the parents, teachers and librarians of our young lives. My parents have been teachers, librarians and book shop owners at one time or another, so that point was fairly hammered into my siblings and I. After all, we had free reign of the shop as young ragamuffins, and who could predict the damage that one magic marker could do when wrapped in twitchy fingers. But you see, writing in books is a marvellous thing. Handwritten inscriptions in the inner pages of a book can tell you where it came from, who it came from and why. How old is it? Has it travelled across the world? They are time-capsule glimpses into the lives of each book and its owner, and the journey it has made from one set of hands to the next. Every message tells a story in its own right; of love or friendship, business or indifference, of what the book meant to its reader and why they needed to share it. It makes that book – that object – completely unique. Reproduce the text a thousand times over, and you still wouldn’t be able to capture it. It’s the feeling that comes with running your finger along lines inked into a page and knowing that another skin once did the same. It’s the mystery of finding a cryptic scrawling in a second-hand paperback and the thrill of turning a page to discover a heartfelt confession from somebody you’ll never know. You can’t get that with a computer screen or a Kindle. In these pages, you’ll find a collection of messages found inside books, from blunt Christmas greetings and family in-jokes, to century-old study notes. They’ve been plucked and borrowed from the shelves of family and friends, second-hand book stores, charity shops and my own personal library.  So next time you pass along a book, remember to write a message inside. You never know where it might end up.”

‘Writing In Books’ is my response to a brief about the nature of books. What I love most about books is they are able to be passed on. Not just forwarded or redownloaded – each book is a physical object that can be travel from person to person, and it becomes even more pronounced when a book has an inscription in it. My concept was to produce a book of these found notes. The final result is a hand-bound hardcover book that contains spreads from 60 books that had all sorts of inscriptions in them. From the introduction:

“Ever since our little hands worked out how to hold a crayon, we’ve been told not to make marks inside books. ‘Treat them with respect,’ they said, the parents, teachers and librarians of our young lives. My parents have been teachers, librarians and book shop owners at one time or another, so that point was fairly hammered into my siblings and I. After all, we had free reign of the shop as young ragamuffins, and who could predict the damage that one magic marker could do when wrapped in twitchy fingers.

But you see, writing in books is a marvellous thing.

Handwritten inscriptions in the inner pages of a book can tell you where it came from, who it came from and why. How old is it? Has it travelled across the world? They are time-capsule glimpses into the lives of each book and its owner, and the journey it has made from one set of hands to the next. Every message tells a story in its own right; of love or friendship, business or indifference, of what the book meant to its reader and why they needed to share it. It makes that book – that object – completely unique. Reproduce the text a thousand times over, and you still wouldn’t be able to capture it. It’s the feeling that comes with running your finger along lines inked into a page and knowing that another skin once did the same. It’s the mystery of finding a cryptic scrawling in a second-hand paperback and the thrill of turning a page to discover a heartfelt confession from somebody you’ll never know. You can’t get that with a computer screen or a Kindle.

In these pages, you’ll find a collection of messages found inside books, from blunt Christmas greetings and family in-jokes, to century-old study notes. They’ve been plucked and borrowed from the shelves of family and friends, second-hand book stores, charity shops and my own personal library.  So next time you pass along a book, remember to write a message inside. You never know where it might end up.”


‘Writing In Books’ is my response to a brief about the nature of books. What I love most about books is they are able to be passed on. Not just forwarded or redownloaded – each book is a physical object that can be travel from person to person, and it becomes even more pronounced when a book has an inscription in it. My concept was to produce a book of these found notes. The final result is a hand-bound hardcover book that contains spreads from 60 books that had all sorts of inscriptions in them. From the introduction: “Ever since our little hands worked out how to hold a crayon, we’ve been told not to make marks inside books. ‘Treat them with respect,’ they said, the parents, teachers and librarians of our young lives. My parents have been teachers, librarians and book shop owners at one time or another, so that point was fairly hammered into my siblings and I. After all, we had free reign of the shop as young ragamuffins, and who could predict the damage that one magic marker could do when wrapped in twitchy fingers. But you see, writing in books is a marvellous thing. Handwritten inscriptions in the inner pages of a book can tell you where it came from, who it came from and why. How old is it? Has it travelled across the world? They are time-capsule glimpses into the lives of each book and its owner, and the journey it has made from one set of hands to the next. Every message tells a story in its own right; of love or friendship, business or indifference, of what the book meant to its reader and why they needed to share it. It makes that book – that object – completely unique. Reproduce the text a thousand times over, and you still wouldn’t be able to capture it. It’s the feeling that comes with running your finger along lines inked into a page and knowing that another skin once did the same. It’s the mystery of finding a cryptic scrawling in a second-hand paperback and the thrill of turning a page to discover a heartfelt confession from somebody you’ll never know. You can’t get that with a computer screen or a Kindle. In these pages, you’ll find a collection of messages found inside books, from blunt Christmas greetings and family in-jokes, to century-old study notes. They’ve been plucked and borrowed from the shelves of family and friends, second-hand book stores, charity shops and my own personal library.  So next time you pass along a book, remember to write a message inside. You never know where it might end up.”

‘Writing In Books’ is my response to a brief about the nature of books. What I love most about books is they are able to be passed on. Not just forwarded or redownloaded – each book is a physical object that can be travel from person to person, and it becomes even more pronounced when a book has an inscription in it. My concept was to produce a book of these found notes. The final result is a hand-bound hardcover book that contains spreads from 60 books that had all sorts of inscriptions in them. From the introduction:

“Ever since our little hands worked out how to hold a crayon, we’ve been told not to make marks inside books. ‘Treat them with respect,’ they said, the parents, teachers and librarians of our young lives. My parents have been teachers, librarians and book shop owners at one time or another, so that point was fairly hammered into my siblings and I. After all, we had free reign of the shop as young ragamuffins, and who could predict the damage that one magic marker could do when wrapped in twitchy fingers.

But you see, writing in books is a marvellous thing.

Handwritten inscriptions in the inner pages of a book can tell you where it came from, who it came from and why. How old is it? Has it travelled across the world? They are time-capsule glimpses into the lives of each book and its owner, and the journey it has made from one set of hands to the next. Every message tells a story in its own right; of love or friendship, business or indifference, of what the book meant to its reader and why they needed to share it. It makes that book – that object – completely unique. Reproduce the text a thousand times over, and you still wouldn’t be able to capture it. It’s the feeling that comes with running your finger along lines inked into a page and knowing that another skin once did the same. It’s the mystery of finding a cryptic scrawling in a second-hand paperback and the thrill of turning a page to discover a heartfelt confession from somebody you’ll never know. You can’t get that with a computer screen or a Kindle.

In these pages, you’ll find a collection of messages found inside books, from blunt Christmas greetings and family in-jokes, to century-old study notes. They’ve been plucked and borrowed from the shelves of family and friends, second-hand book stores, charity shops and my own personal library.  So next time you pass along a book, remember to write a message inside. You never know where it might end up.”


Posted 8 months ago