RARE BOOK GUIDE - THE RUNNERS, THE RIDERS & THE ODDS

14 August 2007

The Incredible BookMan



Today's entry is a fairly unashamed piece of self promotion. We sell BookMan through our shop website. The BookMan is a bookshelf in the shape of a man and is a highly decorative piece of furniture as well as a sculpture. Designed by East Anglian artist and craftsman Kazmierz Szmauz who also designed the CDMan, the DVDMan and VideoMan. However, as booksellers we regard BookMan as his highest achievement. The BookMan holds about 100 books and looks most splendid when they are leatherbound books. Getting the right books is an interesting exercise, the smaller books are more difficult to find-with my own model (above) I occasionally change them around. They can look good with cloth books also, and I have seen one entirely filled with Pan paperbacks - a great piece.

BookMan 1 measures 70 inches high by 45 inches wide and is made from pine, although other woods can be used. Shelves are best adapted to books beneath 8 inches in height. Sometimes seen out of the corner of the eye they seem real, something to do with them being pretty much the same size as a grown man. We had some emails once from someone who objected to BookMan standing on books--they said it was irreverent. I pointed out that he was not standing on the books but resting his feet on them.



Each BookMan is individually built on demand and signed by the artist - BookMan 1 is £1200 - shipping can be expensive but not prohibitive. BookMan has been featured in French and Italian style magazines and we were even contacted by a fashion magazine in China wanting high definition photos which they presumably published.

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