A most expensive and beautiful book

I am, like you, sick of hearing all the negative news about the economy and how nobody reads anymore and so on. Let's face it, reading is a minority activity and it has become sort of cool to be stupid. (How did that happen?) We are a proud minority and, no matter what the idiot brigade might say, if it were not for people like us civilisation could not have risen to this height and man will still be living in caves.

So let us celebrate the book. Let us celebrate what is being billed as the world's most expensive and beautiful book.

It is valued at over US$100,000, is 62-pound and is handmade. It depicts the life and works of Michelangelo and has just been published in Italy. According to the AP report, it takes six months to make each book, using Italian artisan skills dating to the Renaissance, and more than 20 books have been sold.

"Today, things last so little before they disappear, " says Marilena Ferrari, its Italian publisher.

The title of the book is Michelangelo. La Dotta Mano. It has a front cover of white marble bound in red silk velvet. The book is filled with photographs of Michelangelo's sculptures and plates of his drawings, plus images of other creations, from the Sistine Chapel ceiling and his personal poetry.

I am already drooling.

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