Books Bound...in Human Skin.

Mental Floss gives a brief history.

From the piece...

The bizarre art of binding books in human skin, or anthropodermic bibliopegy, dates back to at least the 17th century, and involves flaying the body and tanning the skin just like any other type of leather. It has most often been used by doctors as a way to honor a deceased patient or medical colleague, meaning that many surviving examples are anatomical texts such as Leidy’s. Several American universities, including Harvard and the University of Georgia, quietly keep an anthropodermic book or two (Brown supposedly has three), and the University of Pennsylvania library had to put in a distress call to the Admissions office after a tour guide happened to mention their rare skin-bound copy of Biblotheque Nationale and the library was flooded with curious potential students.

Secret Belgium Bookbinding Instructions

Here's how to make a book like the one above.

The Nation's Bookbinder and the Presidential Papers

From an interesting piece in the Washington Post...

The nation's bookbinder runs his index finger over a rough cut of goatskin. He bears down gently, hunting for blemishes. The leather, flown from London to the bindery of the Government Printing Office, has no major flaws. It is fit to enshrine the utterances of the president.

"It's workable," Peter K. James pronounces. He will glue the frontispiece, trim and sew the stacks of pages, attach the endpapers styled in silk moire, round and hollow the spine, fasten the boards and smooth, gold-stamp and polish President Obama's first set of public papers.

"You know you've got a full goat here?" jokes James, whose title is head forwarder at the printing office. His job is assembling and hand-binding some of the government's most important documents and then forwarding them to the finishers. The craft has changed little since the 17th century.

Monks' Business

The Trappists of Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Oregon are bookbinders. Learn about their craft in the Catholic Sentinel and how they're adapting in the ever-changing economic conditions we're all facing.

From the piece...

“We’re working to adapt,” says Brother Chris Balent, who designed the bindery site. “We do the best we can. We’re not businessmen, we’re monks.”

A steady base of about 30 colleges, especially Portland State University, has been the mainstay of the monks’ book work. It’s the largest of the enterprises at the abbey, also known for making fruitcake, managing a forest and storing wine for local vineyards.

But now the schools are turning more and more to putting periodicals, dissertations and other research in online collections.

The Old Bookbinder of Beirut

There's a nice profile in The Independent about Sheikh Tijlid.

From the story...

They call him "Sheikh Tijlid" – Sheikh Binder – because he is the oldest and the most honoured bookbinder in Beirut.

There are only five left in Lebanon, repairing old newspapers, handwritten 17th-century Korans, ministry archives, cutting and pasting and then modelling fine leather covers and impressing on that wonderful soft leather the title of each volume in gold leaf. Riyad Shaker al-Khabbaz lives for his bunker of an office with its ancient iron presses, its century-old steel Arabic typeface from Germany, France and England. Some of his presses come from the homes of priests – who were the bookbinders of Beirut in centuries past.

He hands me a Koran, written in black and red ink, the margins adorned with yet more handwriting, interpretations of the sura – 300, 400 years old? – and he tells me about his client. "He is a man who greatly loves a Lebanese woman and he wants to give this to her as a gift. It is worth $100,000."