Imagine a library of books with empty pages. They formerly contained text, but over time the ink gradually faded until it disappeared altogether, leaving behind white pages like empty shells.  A library of ghosts.

While the above may have served as a setting for a Borges story, an independent publisher in Borges's native Argentina has actually started publishing books printed with disappearing ink.  The clever marketing trick (which has already garnered them a fair bit of press States-side) is being employed by Eterna Cadencia as a launching platform for new authors.  Their reasoning is such: if you don't read an author's first book, the author won't make it to a second.  So the point is to encourage - or force - the buyer to read the author's book within two months.  After that the ink - and therefore the text - disappear from the pages.

If any of these new authors become collectable in future years, their books will make interesting additions to collections. How much do you charge for an empty codex that formerly housed a text?  It's all rather pleasingly surreal.

Here is the promotional video from Eterna Cadencia about their disappearing ink publications:

Later this month the Woods Hole Film Festival will premiere a new documentary, Eric Carle: Picture Writer, The Art of the Picture Book. The film follows the beloved children's book author and illustrator, now 82, learning about his childhood love of art and nature and his quest to build the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA. Said the film's director, Kate Geis, "[Eric] has retired from the public life of book-touring and visiting schools, but his audience is still growing and is eager to see who Eric is in 'real life.' This documentary is to help satisfy that curiosity, and Eric is generous in sharing his artistic techniques, showing how he plans a picture book, all while telling deeply personal stories of his life."

View the film's trailer here.

Above: Eric Carle in his studio holding The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. Photo by Motoko Inoue.