All books published by Bookery are by Heather Weston. Heather has an MA in Book Art from Camberwell College of Arts and also teaches Book Art on Camberwell's BA Programme. Her books are held in UK collections including the Tate Gallery and the National Art Library at the V&A, as well as numerous collection across the US. Heather's works is supported by the Arts Council, England.

If you would like further information about the books available through Bookery, please email .

bookartbookshop 17 Pitfield Street, Hoxton, London N1 6HB

Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

Victoria & Albert Museum (National Art Library),

National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL

Califia Books Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Cynthia Imperatore Books, San Francisco, USA

Bertram Rota, Longacre, Covent Garden, London

Plus numerous venues and collections across the US (email for specific sites)

The Books available from Bookery are:

• Binding Analysis: Doulbe Bind, by Heather Weston £90
• READ (Past, Tense), by Heather Weston £75
• Borges and I, by Heather Weston £80
• Defeating the Object, by Heather Weston £28
• BOUND (dependence imposed) by Heather Weston £80
• A Diction, by Heather Weston £80 .
• Shedding Light, by Heather Weston £90
• Flip Read, by Heather Weston £35
• Grey Matter (Arguing with Descartes), by Heather Weston £70
• ...............

Signed and numbered unlimited edition: £90

'Read: Past, Tense', is about the very ordinary experience of blushing. At first sight the book contains a text that is reversed out of the red ink background, but as the reader handles the book and their warmth comes through (the book uses heat-sensitive ink that relies on the reader's physical contact with the page to activate it), a more private and intimate text is revealed between the lines’. The reader literally has to feel their way around the text in order for it object to reveal its secrets. This book is concerned with using the interaction of materials to inform the process of reading and the nature of the book's subject matter.

Signed and numbered unlimited edition: £75

'Borges and I' In 1955, at the age of 56, and after a long deterioration, the writer George Luis Borges lost his sight to the point where he could no longer read or write, actions in themselves which were precipitants in his loss of sight. 'Borges and I', the elergy which Borges himself wrote in 1957, provides the conext for a pitched battle that Borges engages in with himself. The prose poem metaphorically documents his struggle to see and to be seen, a struggle that progressively falters through the story. Divisions of identity happen before your eyes as Borges the man engages in a bitter commentary on Borges the writer (and reader), in a futile attempt to salvage his own identity in the face of at the hands of his ego-driven counterpart.In the 2001 rewrite of Borges and I using Borges’ identical text, the artist makes tangible this tragic and unfofgiving fate, and gives a voice to Borges the embittered mortal. The blind-embossed text subverts Borges’ original text and imparts a physical dimension to the page that would otherwise be absent, hijacking the text to give voice to a subtext.

Signed and numbered open edition: £80

'a diction' This book looks at the way we choose to deny our own realities through alcoholism, an addiction that perpetually allows us to disavow our difficulties with the world as we find it. The book reflects the never-ending cycle that is characteristic of any addiction, as the addict continually attempts to grapple with a reality which is uncomfortable and intolerable. What is favoured by the addict is a short-term solution to long-term psychological discomfort at the expense of living in reality and working though reality’s unpleasant aspects. The result is a repetitive reliance on a 'diction', a way of expressing oneself, that controls and restricts what we perceive and feel as real.

The book utilises the page shape of a pint glass, and by doing this, the angled unfolding of the book’s monologue creates a full circle when unfolded that carries the visual and structural metaphor of the cycle of addiction. The paper on which the monologue is printed is Gmund Bier paper, made of recycled beer labels, pulp and beer fibres (hops, malt and yeast).

Signed and numbered open edition: £80

Bound (dependence imposed) Achieving ‘separateness’ in infancy is one of the cornerstones of psychological development and relies on a firm adaptation to reality as presented through a healthy primary relationship (parent and child). Failure to achieve this can result in a debilitating range of psychological difficulties in later life.

BOUND looks the structure of codependence and uses a simple pamphlet-bound structure to explore the experience of psychological merger and separation.
Central to this complex and private book is the concept of ‘imposition’ – how book pages are laid out and assembled for print – and its alternative meaning of ‘encroaching and burdening’. The book looks at what can go psychologically wrong within the parent-child relationship when the psychological reality that is imposed on the child is one of co-dependence rather than freedom. The result can be an eternal and binding dependence between parent and child which sets a pattern for all other relationships in the child’s later life.

The two books within this piece have identical narratives, but each book is dependent on the other for its reading because of the way the imposition has been applied to the page (onto a straight A4 sheet of text). The inappropriate imposition thus creates one text’s structural dependence upon the other. The two books are then bound within the same skin. The blind debossing of the impositional layout provides a visual key to unlocking the narrative held within the pages. The task of the reader is to discover the hidden narrative by understanding classic imposition.

Signed and numbered open edition: £80

Defeating the object This book explores the uncomfortable subject of suicide, the ultimate mal-adaptation to reality. In making a direct parallel between life and narrative, this book describes the baffling reality of a life cut short at the hand of its author.

Taking as its starting point Freud’s writings in ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, it probes the shifting realities we encounter in extreme psychological circumstances: in this case, that of being in love, and of suicide. In both, we are subject to massive distortions of reality, and are temporarily or permanently overwhelmed by an external / internal object (person/thing) that is either to be enjoyed, or suffered. For the suicide, the ultimate solution is to do away with the oppressive internal object and so achieve a life on their own terms. Of course, a rather high price is paid in the achievement of these terms. A life for a life.

The book takes the form of a traditional paperback novel and explores the issue of suicide through the fictitious life and death of its central character, an author. His narrative, along with his life, ends prematurely on page 28, and in this act he defeats both the internal and external object - life, the book, the father, himself. Implicit within the book is the notion of the creative legacy – perhaps the symbol of a life that cannot be lived in the flesh, but may instead be lived posthumously or variously through the artist’s creations.

Limited First Edition of 100, signed and numbered: £28

Grey Matter: Arguing with Descartes

Grey Matter explores the relationship between our bodies and our minds within the context of the dominant philosophical paradigm. Taking Descartes’ model of dualism, the book structure is employed to question the validity of this extreme theoretical split between mind and body, so readily accepted within mainstream philosophical thought and theology. In creating a three-way structure within the book, a middle ground is forged, articulating a different viewpoint, somewhere between black and white. Here subjectivity, perception and a far less certain view of the world allow for a ‘grey area’ in which our minds and bodies can join up to create meaning, via language.

First Signed Edition of 150. 2005
Offset lithography, paper, book cloth and board. Leather slipcase. £70


Flip Read

Flip Read uses the book form to explore the experience of lip reading. The book aims to challenge the hearing person’s perceptions and assumptions about how we construct our verbal and visual world and how we make sense of the information available to us. It employs the naturally ‘silent’ and yet verbal domain of the book, as well as the variable pace that the reader can impose on the pages to assist their understanding. The statement of the speaker is not revealed within the book, leaving a doubt in the reader’s mind over whether they have understood as much as can be understood.
The actual spoken statement is: "How would you cope with the volume turned off?"

First Signed Edition of 150. Boxed. 2005
Offset lithography, paper, and nickel binding screws. 40mx 90mm. £35


Shedding Light

Shedding Light explores the book as a tactile object in the extreme. Taking away the book’s usual visual narrative clues, the seeing reader is left with little traditional visual information with which to decode the presented ‘text’, but instead is faced with a Braille text implicitly inviting them to feel the narrative. A ‘key’ is provided in the form of a visual Braille alphabet card to assist readers who are curious to know what is hidden from view.

The solution to for the seeing reader is to allow light to be cast upon and through the page and in so doing illuminate a hidden text that is printed on the underside of the page that deciphers the Braille. Some reader, of course, may never discover this.

First Signed Edition of 150. 2005
Offset lithography, blind debossing. Felt cover. 140mm x 170mm. £90


All books have their own ISBN number and are held in the Copyright Libraries of the UK.


Email: heather@bookery.co.uk www.bookery.co.uk