I’ve taken 3 papermaking classes with the wonderful Mary Ashton (via The Weaving Works).  Mary’s a fantastic teacher with a well-equipped paper studio.  She also has a thorough library of papermaking-related books.  Here are the recommendations she’s given out during the 3 classes i’ve taken with her — Introduction to Papermaking, Japanese Papermaking, and Tibetan Papermaking.

Many of these are out-of-print and can be hard to find.  I acquired my copies by regularly checking Powell’s, abebooks, and my local used bookstores.

papermaking — general

Art and Craft of Handmade Paper.  Studley, Vance.  (New York: Dover, 1999.)

Art and Craft of Papermaking.  Dawson, Sophie.  (London: Quarto Publishing, 1992.)

Complete Book of Papermaking.  Asunción, Josep.  (New York: Lark Books, 2001.)

Handmade Paper: A Practical Guide to Oriental and Western Techniques.  Cunning, Sheril.  (Escondido, California: Cunning Enterprises, 1983.)

Paper — Art & Technology.  (San Francisco: World Print Council, 1979.)

Papermaking.  Heller, Jules.  (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1978.)

Papermaking.  Hunter, Dard.  (New York: Dover, 1978.)

Which Paper? Turner, Silvie.  (Design Press, 1992.)

papermaking — general (student suggestion)

Paper Pleasures.  Shannon, Faith.  (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.)

papermaking — with plants

Dyeing with Plants in Zimbabwe.  Noy, Ilse.  (Harare, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production, 1988.)

Papermaking with Garden Plants and Common Weeds.  Hiebert, Helen.  (North Adams, Massachusetts: Storey Publishing, 2006.)

Plant Fibers for Papermaking.  Bell, Lilian.  (Liliaceae Press, 1981.)

papermaking — with plants (student suggestion)

Art of Papermaking with Plants.  Lorenté, Marie-Jeanne. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.)  Caveat: Mary thought this was a good book overall, except for the fact that the author used bleach and lye in all her papers.

papermaking — Japanese

Japanese Papermaking.  Barrett, Timothy.  (Trumbull, Connecticut: Weatherhill, 1984.)

Guide to Japanese Papermking.  Farnsworth, Donald.  (Oakland, California: Magnolia Editions, 1997.)

This was one of our Mithlond selections for the year.  I love including films on our list of monthly selections!  There’s such a wealth of cinema we can draw from.

Andy and i had failed to see the recent film of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” before watching “Prince Caspian” (which irritated me — i’ll have to make a point to watch LW&W this weekend).  It’s also been probably 5 or 6 years since i read “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and so i was coming at this movie with very few reference points.

Read more »

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book is the january selection for Mithlond.  In a surprising turn of events, i’ve actually managed to read it — the whole thing! — before the meeting! Read more »

about

Mithlond is the Pugetopolis (i.e., Seattle area) discussion group of the Mythopoeic Society. We meet once a month at a member’s home and discuss topics pertaining to literature of the fantastic. In theory, each month we make one book the topic of discussion, tho’ in practice we typically discuss said book for anywhere from 10 – 30 minutes before chasing down any old rabbit hole that presents itself. The Mythopoeic Society is an organization dedicated to the discussion of the Inklings (especially J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams), so we try to select one of their books at least once a year. The rest of the year is always up for negotiation; our group leans toward the fantastic (some Mythopoeic Society discussion groups go a little farther afield into science fiction, et cetera), and we frequently select “classic,” pre-Tolkien works as well as epic sagas and fairytales. Mithlond re-started in the spring of 2002 after a hiatus. The following list covers the books we’ve read since re-forming (leaving out meetings where we did not select a particular book for discussion). I pulled the list together from Matt’s original Mithlond list and from the Mithlond Yahoo! group.

2010:

• January: The Graveyard Book.  Gaiman, Neil.
• February: “Prince Caspian” (film).
• March: The Lightning Thief. Riordan, Rick.
• April: “Paradise Lost”. Milton, John.
• May: “Tales of the Knights Templar.”  Kurtz, Katherine (ed.).
• June: The Summer Tree.  Kay, Guy Gavriel.
• July: Summer Hiatus Part I
• August: Summer Hiatus Part II
• September: Wicked.  MaGuire, Gregory.
• October: Eragon.  Paolini, Christopher.
• November: “The Silmarillion” — The Beren & Luthien and Turin stories.  Tolkien, J.R.R.
• December: Choose more books!

2009:

• January: Lavinia. LeGuin, Ursula.
• February: Postponed until march.
• March: Twilight. Meyer, Stephanie. AND, All the Windwracked Stars. Bear, Elizabeth.
• April: Foucault’s Pendulum. Eco, Umberto.
• May: Gene Wolfe’s pirate book
• June: Beadle the Bard. Rowling, J.K.
• July & August: No homework. ;)
• September: Greater Trumps. Williams, Charles.
• October: The Charles Dexter Ward. Lovecraft, H.P.
• November: Anathem. Stephenson, Neal.
• December: The annual holiday-gathering and picking-next-year’s-books tradition.

2006:

• January: Anansi Boys. Gaiman, Neil.
• February: Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. Wrede, Patricia C. and Caroline Stevermer.
• March: Night Watch. Pratchett, Terry.
• April: Lud-in-the-Mist. Mirrlees, Hope.
• May: A Wind from the South. Duane, Diane.
• June: “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” Volume 1; plus source material — Dracula (Stoker, Bram), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne, Jules), Allan Quatermain stories (Haggard, H. Rider), The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson, Robert Louis).
• July: Short fiction of Clark Ashton Smith.

2005:

• January: Short fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.
• February: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Clarke, Susanna.
• March: Tolkien on Film. Croft, Janet (ed.).
• April: Short fiction of Hans Christian Andersen.
• May: Yvain. Chretien de Troyes.
• June: Howl’s Moving Castle. Jones, Diana Wynne.
• July: The Silmarillion. Tolkien, J.R.R.
• August: Fudoki. Johnson, Kij.
• September: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Rowling, J.K.
• October: The Face in the Frost. Bellairs, John.
• November: The Anvil of the World. Baker, Kage.
• December: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Lewis, C.S.

2004:

• January: The Return of the King. Tolkien, J.R.R.
• February: The Book of Wonder. Lord Dunsany.
• March: The Sheepfarmer’s Daughter. Moon, Elizabeth.
• April: Little, Big. Crowley, John.
• May: Titus Groan. Peake, Mervyn.
• June: The Golden Compass. Pullman, Philip.
• July: Stardust. Gaiman, Neil.
• August: In the Forests of Serre. McKillip, Patricia.
• September: Paladin of Souls. Bujold, Lois McMaster.
• October: Short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.
• November: The Last Light of the Sun. Kay, Guy Gavriel.

2003:

• January: J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Shippey, Tom.
• February: Bridge of Birds. Hughart, Barry.
• March: Unfinished Tales. Tolkien, J.R.R.
• April: The Worm Ouroboros. Eddison, E.R.
• May: The War in Heaven. Williams, Charles.
• June: The Eyre Affair. Fforde, Jasper.
• July: The Mabinogi, and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. Ford, Patrick (ed.).
• August: The Lives of Christopher Chant. Jones, Diana Wynne.
• September: The Well at the World’s End. Morris, William.
• October: Phantastes. Macdonald, George.
• November: The Return of the King. Tolkien, J.R.R.

2002:

• May: The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien, J.R.R.
• June: The Fionavar Tapestry. Kay, Guy Gavriel.
• July: Short fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien.
• August: Childhood’s End. Clarke, Arthur C.
• September: The Great Divorce & Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis, C.S.
• October: The Anubis Gates. Powers, Tim.
• November: The Two Towers. Tolkien, J.R.R.