B I B L I O G R A P H Y

i s i t a b o o k ?

Suggestions for the further Pleasure of the reader.

"The first time I read the dictionary I thought it was a poem about everything."

- Steven Wright

Introduction

Librarians are the sort of people who often think that reading one thing on a subject is not enough; and so you are here provided with a bibliography which we hope will lead you away from our work and on to other things. It is divided into a number of pages, one for each major section, and several on other subjects that relate to our discussions. These are listed to the left of this paragraph, and are included on each subsequent page for the reader's convenience. Each page contains bibliographic information for books and other paper-based sources at the top, and information about web-based resources below. The section on cinema, naturally, lists films before any other resource.

Please be advised that many of the topics addressed by Is It A Book? are connected by divers threads and each reader may find that the subject she is really interested in is addressed in several of this bibliography's sections. No doubt there are those who would disagree with Emily-Jane's placement of certain resources in particular categories. And, there are a few items that don't fit neatly into any of the categories Emily-Jane has devised. Two are listed here because they are clearly worth including nonetheless:

Texts

A book of the book : some works and projections about the book and writing, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Steven Clay. New York : Granary Books, 2000.
Essays and reproductions of artistic works on books, poetics, and the book object. The book's final section, "The book to come," collects essays and other works concerned with the book-object's cultural, literary, and spiritual meaning and significance.
The first essay in the collection, "The poetics & ethnopoetics of the book & writing," by Jerome Rothenberg, is available in full text online (Granary Books, 2000).
Drucker, Johanna. Figuring the word : essays on books, writing, and visual poetics. New York : Granary Books, 1998.
A collection of previously hard-to-find essays, interviews, and lectures. Includes sections on "Writing as artifact," "Visual poetics," "Artists' books past and future," "The future of writing," and "Personal writing."
One essay, "The art of the written image," is available in full text online (Granary Books, 1998).

In addition, Emily-Jane would like to note that she has not read everything in these lists all the way through. She hasn't, in fact, even laid hands on everything noted here. Readers with comments or suggestions to make should address them to Emily-Jane via email, at ejdawson@yahoo.com, where they may be taken very seriously, or they may not.

An effort has been made to ensure that the majority of the paper-based resources listed herein are of recent publication, or are widely available in libraries in the United States (where the bibliographer lives).

-- bibliography compiled by Emily-Jane Dawson, 2000-2005
(the latest update took place in August of 2005)