Turkestan Solo book repair

Now I’d heard of book binders and repairs to books but I’d never thought I’d ever seek their services.

How wrong I was. A couple of months ago, whilst sitting in my study, I heard a crash from the lounge and found that a book shelf had fallen down catapulting many of my Back of Beyond books across the floor. One of which was “Turkestan Solo” by Ella K Malliart.

I’d picked this book up in one of my regular visits to Hay-on-Wye. As you can see the spine was broken, and the frontispiece and a few pages were loose.

A quick check on Amazon indicated it would be an expensive book to replace, and seeing as it was otherwise in good condition, I decided to cast around and see if I could have it repaired.

The images are provided by the book binder, Chris Noel. Here the spine is being cleaned.

Water damage on the back cover to be repaired.

Repairing the spine.

new spine lining fitted to the cover cloth before sticking back onto the text block.

The book clamped together whilst the glue sets.

So I picked up the book yesterday. Its back in one piece, and in a better shape than I ever had it in.

All images taken by Chris Noel of CN Bibliographic.

The price was reasonable, and I now have a book that “feels like new”, whilst retaining the patina of age.