Bookbombing. You’re welcome to it. This post charts the progress of the first bookbombing of a single-publication over multiple sites, a guerrilla installation over a number of locations in Coventry, the 2021 UK City of Culture.
The book in question is ‘Look at the Bees’, a compilation of over 2000 inspirational quotes from the ages I originally put together in 2006 for an audience of one, my wife. For some reason I thought it might be a useful tool in my quest to stop her becoming my ex-wife. It didn’t work. Then, against any real judgement, as I had put in all that effort I had a second edition printed of around 1000 in 2007, but then when I got them I didn’t really make any attempt to sell them, I’d thought it might not be the best thing. So they got put in the attic and, well, left there. I did give some away, a far better friend than I deserved flogged a few (now I think about that, I never saw any money for them, but he did lend me a knackered Peugeot 205 for a few months, so I can’t really complain.) and for some reason that still makes no sense to me, a colleague put an advert on an online merchandising shop for a national campaign, but the rest were just left in the attic.
So for 14 years, almost every copy of ‘Look at the Bees’ has been in the dark, not even able to collect dust as they have never been taken out of heir original boxes. Until now. Because no matter how much we might want to hide them, words should not be kept prisoner, because they set us free.
Below are tweets showing 100 locations where copies were bookbombed on December 1st and 3rd 2021. If you would like a copy without the hassle and randomness of hoping there is still one in the bookbombed locations, visit Facebook Marketplace.
You can currently gte your own copy of Look at the Bees via Facebook Marketplace.