Restoring a Book from 1945

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle

When I started to learn about book binding last semester I was told to bring an old vintage book to the class. A book that needed a repair.

I looked through my book shelf at home, but didn’t find a book that I wanted to redo. Instead I went to Goodwill (Kupan) and bought a second hand book for 10 SEK. It was the saddest book they had, torn and almost certain to break very soon. I don’t have a photo of how it looked, but it was falling apart, trust me.

Restoring a book

I cut it open and restored all the tears that the pages got, bound it and made a new cover after hammering and gluing and working with the spine. I could’ve never imagined how much work it takes to repair one single book before I started. Now I know.

The book I restored in my beginner’s way, is called När var hur (When, where, how). It’s a Swedish dictionary that comes out each year. This is the first volume, from the year 1945. It was a good year. The World War II ended back then and my father was born. My grandmother told me how they celebrated both things that spring.

I like that the book is that old, and from a special year. I also like that it is a book that is fun to look through. I’m thinking I might give it to my dad on his next birthday? It needs a title on the brown (library looking) cover, but otherwise it is finished and in better condition than when I started working with it. I’m glad I didn’t destroy it, even though I think that it could be much better looking.

Pages I like

Some spreads in the book: