Where can I buy an ingot for reading?

[ywine]

Many of us need an ingot for reading but they don't seem to be on sale in the high street. I'm located in Britain so I would appreciate most the answers from there.

Books don't like to be read. I'm half amused, half exasperated when I sometimes read a complacent commentator talking about technology ("E-books - what's the point?") say that the book is a perfected technology. How can that be when a book, placed on a desk and opened, flips pages? You can't read that without holding the pages down. It's like having to actively coerce - I mean fight - the book to let you read it. Perfected technology? [!!!!] Hardbacks are bad enough, but paperbacks?

No-one who always sits up in a chair and holds their book in both hands will think there's a problem. No-one who likes to read with the book on, say a coffee table would think things couldn't be improved.

The best solution I have managed to think of is a heavy metal bar to put across the book. Not too wide, as that would obscure more lines, not too short, as the paperback spine would wrestle it away, not too thin, as that would let the bloody spine shrug it off, and not too heavy for moving about: just right.

I am still using my TV remote, but it's too puny. I need steel or nickel or silver.

Any advice?

[Arjuna34]

How about an iron wedge (http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-Ochsenkopf-Iron-Wedge-22833.htm)?

[freckafree]

There are few desires so obscure that someone is not willing to make a buck to satisfy them. Hence, the bookstop. (http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/Product.asp?Params=Category=17-671|PageID=2247|Level=2-3|Link=PT|special=search|ID=SearchClicked|i=1)

Or perhaps you can locate one of the legendary products of the Monongahela Metal Foundry, "purveyors of shiny steel ingots for the housewife." Maybe you can use that, and stick down the outside edges with Einbinder's Fly Paper.

(ywine, as a Brit, you may not be familiar with the American radio comedians Bob and Ray. The aforementioned products were "advertised" in their radio show. Hell, plenty of young'un American Dopers probably don't know what I'm talking about, either!)

[ywine]

Thank you, freckafree. I am glad my predicament has been anticipated by a purveyor. Can't think why it's obscure, though (I will buy two. One to put on top of the other).

[freckafree]

Wanting a means to hold your book open is not obscure at all! Wanting to accomplish it with an ingot is perhaps less common. :)

My mom gave my husband that very bookstop a number of years ago. That's how I knew about it. It does the job, although, like you, I can foresee instances in which two would be better.

[Xema]

Note that you can get a similar result more cheaply by using a spring clip. It has the additional advantages of blocking less (perhaps none) of the printing on a page and of being more easily transported.

[Triskadecamus]

http://cgi.ebay.com/3lbs-Of-Real-Pewter-Metal-Casting-Ingots_W0QQitemZ330025458201QQcmdZViewItem

Three pounds might be a bit more than you need, but I think they have one pound ones, too.

Pricer ones of brass, or even silver are also available.

Tris

[AskNott]

Any proper hardware store will be pleased to sell you a Great Big Bolt And Nut for considerably less than the Levenger Blackjack, and you won't get arrested for carrying it.

"Honest, officer, it's a weight for keep unruly books open!"
"Lady, in this state, lead shot in a leather sleeve is a blackjack, a cosh, a goodnight kiss. Put your hands behind you. Now."

[Derleth]

"Lady, in this state, lead shot in a leather sleeve is ... a cosh ... ."No need to be hyperbolic.

[bcullman]

a decently sized, sanitized river rock might do the trick as well...

[Joey P]

I caught my mother in law using a Glock to hold a cook book open one day. You could try that.

[postcards]

I use an old printer's line gauge, twelve inches long, fairly heavy brass. Good for hardcovers and many thinnner (200ppgs or less) trade paperbacks.

Pretty useless for standard 'pocket' paperbacks, though.

[AskNott]

No need to be hyperbolic.
:D I thought you were talking about exaggeration (hyperbole) until I looked up cosh again. Besides a weighted weapon, cosh refers to something about a hyperbola in Trigonometry. I don't speak Trig, so I still don't know precisely what it is. :p

:smack: I've just overexplained your joke into the ground, haven't I? :smack: :smack:

[Canadjun]

:D I thought you were talking about exaggeration (hyperbole) until I looked up cosh again. Besides a weighted weapon, cosh refers to something about a hyperbola in Trigonometry. I don't speak Trig, so I still don't know precisely what it is. :p

Hyperbolic cosine - cosh (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HyperbolicCosine.html)