"Ich weiß nicht, was ein Buch ist: aber ich glaube, weise handelten jene keilförmigen Zeichen, die mit ihrer nageligen Schrift Bücher in dicke, dann gut gebrannte Ziegelsteine aus Tonerde eindrückten: jede Seite dreihundert von unseren heutigen."
Giorgio Manganelli "Pinocchio. Ein Parallelbuch"
The volume was assembled from spreads taken from 50 different books, some old, some new. The books’ topics ranged from lyrics, novels, tales, factual works, atlases, photo books etc. (Most of these books were in German, others were in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Greek, etc.) Each copy varies from the others, as each receives its individual page spread from the found book. This procedure corresponds with what Borges maintained in his tale "The Library of Babel": "There are not, in the whole vast Library, two identical books." The thread running through the volume is a text passage from Giorgio Manganelli’s "Pinocchio: un libro parallelo" (German translation). The text by the contemporary italian writer deals with the question "what is a book". Design, handset and letterpress (of the Manganelli text): Peter Malutzki. Bookprinting paper and found material, 270 pages, printed paperboard. Lahnstein 1997.
