Two Neat Hypothetical Books We (Partly) Wish We Owned

1. Wikipedia as a printed book.

Wouldn’t it be great to own the complete, printed Wikipedia? In reality, not so much.

You see, this bound beauty represents just 0.01% of everything on Wikipedia (as of June 2009..). But it also reminds me of different times, when knowledge was nicely bound in finite volumes from A-Z, like snapshots of an era. If you still own encyclopedias, never throw them away! I would hate to lose that record of what Brittanica was thinking about the the World back in 1987.

2. The Complete Bound Ferengi 285 Rules of Acquisition

Somebody on Etsy reproduced the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, complete with a hand-carved wooden cover and all 285 rules printed in a Ferengi font (where does one obtain the Ferengi font?). [Non-Trekkies: The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition are the set of aphorisms and guidelines that rule Star Trek‘s Ferengi: the big-eared aliens best known from Deep Space 9. You know, like Quark. –Ed.]

I’m deeply attracted to this item, yet economically repulsed by the $2500 price tag. If you ask me, the seller doesn’t really want to sell. And truth be told, I don’t blame her.

(This post originally appeared on Cindy Au’s blog, Matter Anti-Matter.)