I have a book I’m reading that the pages have fallen away from the back binding-they’re still bound together, but when you open it to one page, the two halves fall away from each other, if you know what I mean. (That’s the best way I can describe it!)
Now, I could replace the book, but it’s no longer available in hardcover, in fact I found these secondhand at a library book sale years ago (It’s Mercedes Lackey’s Mage Winds trilogy, the second book Winds of Change, in case anyone’s interested). It’s said that they’re extremely rare to find, and I’d rather have the hardbounch copies than a new paperback.
Any advice on fixing it? (It would also be great for all the old books I’ve picked up at various places!)
Sure, there are places that re-bind books. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any. I’m not sure how expensive it is, either.
A friend of mine worked for a rare book shop in Lenox Square mall in Atlanta. I know they “didn’t pay jack” (his words) to have the bindings re-done, but they probably sent 100 books a month to the re-binder (and thus got a quantity discount), plus they might have meant that it was inexpensive relative to the final selling price of the book.
I know, for example, that they paid less than $300 for a first edition of David Copperfield that Eric Clapton paid several thousands of dollars for. Even if the re-binding cost $600, it still wouldn’t take too much of a cut from their profits if the book was selling for $3000 or more ya know?
I’m not exactly sure what the problem is here. Are the ‘signatures’ (folded bundles of pages) just coming away from the spine undamaged, or have the threads torn through the paper? If it’s the former, a bookbinder might be able to fix it as if it were new again. In the latter case, they’d probably have to trim the pages and sew them together again, which makes it much harder to open far enough to read.
Check the phone book for bookbinders and see what they have to say. Good luck!
I would go to the local library and find out where they get their books repaired.
I learned bookbinding in high school shop and do it as a hobby. I would caution against trying to do it yourself from a cold start if you value the book.
I’m really pissed at most modern book binders. They don’t sew the pages any more except on the very highest quality books. Most of them are end-glued like paperbacks but with a cloth backing that attaches to the cover. The idea is that the new adhesives will do the job. I’ve seen some pretty new and relatively unused books come apart.
Plus, no one knows what the life of the glue is, and when you add to that the fact that wood pulp paper tends to disintergrate fairly quickly, you’ve got a recipe for disaster. In a thousand years, how many first edition books will be left from this era because of that? (When you add in the numbers of books sitting on shelves, moldering away, unnoticed, that may be the only extant copies of a valuable book, and it’s enough to give a bibliophile night terrors.)
Nope, they’re glued, not sewn. I wouldn’t spend more than say, ten bucks. Maybe fifteen-after all I only paid a dollar for the book in the first place. (Although as I said, these are hard to find, from what I gather). It looks like they’ve neatly separated from each other at pages 86 and 87, and they’re still attached to the cover, but not to each other. sigh
Can you take and post links to photos of the damage? Depending on how the signatures are separating, you may be able to use an adhesive to make repairs. I’ve found hot melt glue works particularly well, since it remains somewhat flexible when set, and I’ve used it to repair a few of my older books. You could probably pick up a cheap glue gun with glue sticks for less than $10.
From what I’ve read about glueing books, that probably is a bad idea. Most kinds of glue have “bad” pHs, from the standpoint of paper. IOW, they contribute to the eventual decay of the paper.
I’ve got lots of information for the OP (or any other interested person).
First, there are other HC copies of the book available (mostly more ex-libs, but still …). Here’s a link to the Amazon page showing the different editions of the book. At present, they have HC copies starting at $3.71, with a (claimed, but most Amazon sellers are pretty honest about such things) good condition non-ex-lib copy at $12.50. And Amazon isn’t your only potential source for another copy. There’s always eBay. And numerous other possible sources, not included because this post is already longer than I’d intended.
As for repairs, here are some links. The first two are pages of links for book repair, conservation, etc. Caution: the Bibliomania pages may contain some 404 links. I recently tried to report one, but got no response.
Many of the links from the above pages are to various libraries, including one for Dartmouth.
Brodart (possibly the best known source of clear plastic covers for dust jackets, among a vast array of other products for libraries and bibliophiles) offers a video, Brodart’s Guide to Book Repair and Protection. Although at ~$48 this is unlikely to be of interest to the OP, there are likely others who will find it of interest. Here are some of the things they say on the page:
I could give more, but that should be more than enough already.
