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Do You Know What a “Blook” Is? Neither Did I!
Book lovers will appreciate the coolness
Beyond the book safe
If you own a dozen or more books, you might line them up on a shelf and enjoy the colors, the titles, and the varying heights of the volumes.
If you have bookshelves, you may have considered getting a book safe, a box built to look like a book but with a hollow space inside where you could hide cash, credit cards, or keys. Once the book is on the shelf, it looks like any other book, so thieves wouldn’t know to pull it.
But I was amazed that in addition to the classic “book safe,” a whole world of objects made to look like books exists. An exhibit at the Center for Book Arts in New York showcases bold and daring items that look like books but aren’t.
These objects are termed “blooks,” a word coined by curator, Mindell Dubansky. It’s a contraction for “book look,” and, as Dubansky points out, is a word born out of necessity. In the English language, there is no word that describes an object made to look like a book, even though there are many extant examples in our culture.
A side note …
I have to admit that I got a little excited when I discovered an entire institute devoted to “Book Arts”!
