Save a Tree, Eat a Book

Abbie Hoffman once authored a book, titled, 'Steal This Book'. I say we're beyond that. As true consumers we need to take it one step further. There's a book out whose title (at least), has the right idea - 'Eat This Book!', but the content misses the mark.

Let me back up a minute: I was sitting at our dining table the other day talking about books and publishing. I was speaking with a house guest of ours, who, aside from being a refugee of the housing slump (and thus our guest), just happens to be a well-known children's book author and illustrator. She was telling me about a new eco-friendly trend, one example of which is book covers that are actually part of the book - not removable (and therefore not wasteful). Those flaps, where the content blurb and author notes are located? Still there, but not removable. (Good, I can still use them as bookmarks. But I digress.)

'Why not take this further?' I asked. 'Why not make the covers edible? In fact, why not make the whole book edible? Kids need nutrition, right?'

My friend the author, being the creative sort, immediately imagined all kinds of possibilities, which can be nicely summarized by 'pineapple pages, with raspberry ink'. Yummy.

Which brings me back to the point: Let's have edible books! Make books entirely, completely, edible. Something you will never be able to say about on-line content (I hope). Make them good for your body as well as your mind.

Here's an idea for Jenny Craig: Diet books, which are eaten as part of the diet. Perhaps one page a day, maybe a chapter. I'm not quite sure how this will help books on plumbing, anatomy, or automotive repair, but I am sure something could be figured out.

And when our guest and the other nutritionally-savvy authors of the future produce these edible books, I hope one of them will be titled 'You Can Have Your Cake Book, And Eat It Too!' I want my copy in Angel food with chocolate icing, and absolutely NO raspberry layers.