The Bookbinder

by Pip Williams

Why do we have so many books? I liked to ask. To expand your world, she would always say.

There is satisfaction in sewing the parts of a book together. Binding one idea to the next, one word to another, reuniting sentences with their beginnings and ends. The process of stitching can become an act of reverence, and when there are more sections on the frame than on the bench, you begin to anticipate the moment the parts become a whole.

If you shrink yourself to the smallness of your circumstances, you’ll soon disappear.

When we bound these books, I thought, they were identical. But I realised they couldn’t stay that way. As soon as someone cracks the spine, a book develops a character all its own. What impresses or concerns one reader is never the same as what impresses or concerns all others. So, each book, once read, will fall open at a different place. Each book, once read, I realised, will have told a slightly different story.

‘The words used to describe us define our value to society and determine our capacity to contribute. They also’ – and again she poked at the translations – ‘tell others how to feel about us, how to judge us.’