# Help me describe a (physically) beautiful, elaborate book
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 1, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936 "2006-08-01T21:33:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/1 "2006-08-01T21:33:38Z")
I’m having a brain fart, you see.
Of course, this is post twelve billion and seventy-nine about my novel-in-progress. Quite explanation: the main character’s older sister, Rosemary, is turning 19. She and her brother have, for the last three years, each gotten mysterious presents from an anonymous gift-giver on every birthday & Xmas. The gifts arrive in the mail and are sometimes quite elaborate. Rosemary performs excerpts from James Weldon Johnson’s poetry collection God’s Trombones regularly at church, and her paperback copy is falling to pieces because it’s been read so much. This year’s gift is an improvemement on her current one; the copy she has is clearly unique, as if crated by magic, not the cheap paperback this book is published as in the real world. Currently I describe it thus:
_Rosemary held up a slender volume. “It’s a book—a new copy of God’s Trombones. Really nice, too—leatherbound with vellum paper and gold engraving on the cover and color plates inside.”_
I’m not really satisfied with that description. For one thing I can’t, for the life of me, remember what the proper name is for the gold edging you’ll sometimes see around Bibles & such; does anybody know? Second, I just think I’ve chosen the wrong details,or some of the wrong details, here; the vellum paper in particular seems wrong.
To ask the question a different way: Think of your favorite book; if you were going to get a really fancy copy made, as much for its visual and tactile qualities as for its cntents, how would you want it made?
Thanks in advance to anybody who troubles to answer.
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/2 "2006-08-01T21:47:03Z")
Reading that certainly gives me the impression of a fancy-looking book. I would just note that it feels like one too many “ands” and cut it to:
> [@Skald the Rhymer](#):
>
> _Rosemary held up a slender volume. “It’s a book—a new copy of God’s Trombones. Really nice, too—leatherbound with vellum paper and gold engraving on the cover.”_
You don’t need to describe every detail covering every inch of the book - just the key details which communicate the idea you’re trying to communicate, here: it’s a fancy-looking book.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/3 "2006-08-01T21:55:05Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> Reading that certainly gives me the impression of a fancy-looking book. I would just note that it feels like one too many “ands” and cut it to:
>
> You don’t need to describe every detail covering every inch of the book - just the key details which communicate the idea you’re trying to communicate, here: it’s a fancy-looking book.
Likely you’re right; I just don’t like the vellum paper, for some reason,and would rather use the word GILDING!
I just thought of it. Gilding, gilt.
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### Author:  [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/4 "2006-08-01T21:55:50Z")
This should help: [TheBookbinder.com is for sale | HugeDomains](http://www.thebookbinder.com/html/bookparts.htm)
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### Author:  [@Carlyjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carlyjay)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/5 "2006-08-02T00:23:05Z")
I like the word “gossamer”. Can you put “gossamer” in there somewhere? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/6 "2006-08-02T00:53:15Z")
Richly textured oxblood calfskin leather cover, with lettering stamped in gold leaf.
Handsewn binding.
Beautiful peacock green endsheets.
Color plates between signatures in two locations
Text handwritten in an elaborate script or handset in Garamond on a Gutenberg-style press, so you can feel the type on the pages as well as see it.
Maybe an “ex libris” sticker carefully attached to the inside cover, with her name on it.
I thought the term you were looking for for the gold edge was “deckle edge,” but that’s a ragged edge to the paper. Some folks find it attractive. [http://desktoppub.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-deckleedge.htm](http://desktoppub.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-deckleedge.htm)
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/7 "2006-08-02T02:38:12Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#):
>
> This should help: [TheBookbinder.com is for sale | HugeDomains](http://www.thebookbinder.com/html/bookparts.htm)
Many thanks! “After I conquer the earth, your death shall be quick & painless.”
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/8 "2006-08-02T13:34:56Z")
I really like that oil-on-water, almost psychedelic swirly pattern they have on the inside cover of some old books (sorry, on the 'pastedown and ‘flyleaf’ 🙂 ) - a magical version would have this slowly shifting like currents in a polluted puddle.
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/9 "2006-08-02T13:34:59Z")
How do you want readers to see Rosemary’s reaction? Is she supposed to be “oh holy shit, this is AWESOME?” totally geeked out, or something different? The way it’s written, to me, doesn’t really convey excitement. It seems more analytical and acknowledging that it’s nice because of those fancy things.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/10 "2006-08-02T13:48:24Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#):
>
> I really like that oil-on-water, almost psychedelic swirly pattern they have on the inside cover of some old books (sorry, on the 'pastedown and ‘flyleaf’ 🙂 ) - a magical version would have this slowly shifting like currents in a polluted puddle.
I like the way you think!
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/11 "2006-08-02T14:29:56Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#):
>
> How do you want readers to see Rosemary’s reaction? Is she supposed to be “oh holy shit, this is AWESOME?” totally geeked out, or something different? The way it’s written, to me, doesn’t really convey excitement. It seems more analytical and acknowledging that it’s nice because of those fancy things.
The reaction is more…well, I suppose you might say bemused. She and her brother have been receiving the anonymous gifts twice a year each (at birthdays & Xmas) four a couple of years; so when she tells him about it, she begins, “Well, Wonder Twins, we have yet another in our series of mysterious occurrences.”
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### Author:  [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-describe-a-physically-beautiful-elaborate-book/366936/12 "2006-08-02T19:14:38Z")
I have an old book, titled Cranford. I bought it for how it looks. It is a smallish book, not much larger than a paperback, the leather binding is soft and smooth, each page is gilded on the edge and the text is nestled in a frame of beautiful botanical designs. Just touching each page is magical. You can feel the love that went in to making this book with every page you turn.