Choose your favorite definition of “The Book” from Amaranth Borsuk published definitions, which she compiled while writing The Book and published along with an introduction to the project, in the American Book Review. You can read them in those articles (I recommend the PDFs for the best designed experience).
Watch videos 2-9 in this orientation playlist from my previous press (watch from “Investigating a Composed Form of Type” to “Woodcuts”). These will explain the basics of typesetting with a close-up video of the process and allow us to jump into our lab more quickly. This should take 30-40 minutes in total, but please pay close attention—the details are important.
Penumbra
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1916), Chapters 2-7 (mostly skim, but read the sections describing the print shop, which are spread through these chapters, closely), external website
Kai-wing Chow, “Reinventing Gutenberg: Woodblock and Movable-Type Printing in Europe and China” in _ Agent of Change_ (2007), resource via library
Marcy J. Dinius, “‘Look!! Look!!! at This!!!!’: The Radical Typography of David Walker’s Appeal” (2011), resource via library
Elyse Graham, “The Printing Press as Metaphor” (2016), external website
Corinna Zeltsman, “Defining Responsibility: Printers, Politics, and the Law in Early Republican Mexico City” (2018), resource via library