{"id":2868,"date":"2012-08-22T22:47:11","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T02:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2012-08-22T22:47:11","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T02:47:11","slug":"simply-amazeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/my-travels\/simply-amazeing\/","title":{"rendered":"Simply aMAZEing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The fabulous book maze<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I was wandering around London’s South Bank the other day, soaking up the atmosphere of my favourite city, when I stumbled across something rather fabulous in the ballroom of the Royal Festival Hall.<\/p>\n

It’s called aMAZEme \u2013 and it’s a maze made of a quarter of a million books \u2013 with the design based on a fingerprint.<\/p>\n

It’s not just an art installation. It’s a living breathing salute to the books that we all love.<\/p>\n

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There were so many books I have read and loved in those walls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole thing was created by Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo <\/a>out of\u00a0second hand\u00a0books or\u00a0remaindered books donated by publishers.<\/p>\n

They laid the walls in a pattern inspired by the finger print of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.<\/p>\n

I spent quite some time wandering around the maze \u2013 finding books there that I had read and loved.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Books by my favourite authors. Books by my author friends.<\/p>\n

I didn’t see any of my books \u2013 but it would have been an honour to have one there.<\/p>\n

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I found my friend Judy Astley in the wall...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The most amaze-ing thing about it was the connection people had to the books. People were invited to walk through the maze \u2013 to open and read the books. And they did.<\/p>\n

They wandered along the walls of books \u2013 exclaiming when they found a treasure. Some people pulled books out of the wall, and laid them on the top as they flicked through the pages \u2013 reminding themselves why they loved that particular book.<\/p>\n

There was a low wall of kids’ books \u2013 where the children could read. And even a wall of braille books.<\/p>\n

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My dear friend Katie Fforde was there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As people interacted with the books, the structure changed. Walls got just a little bit higher. Or lower. A books moved from one place to the next. It really was as alive as the stories inside the books themselves.<\/p>\n

I just loved it.<\/p>\n

I know some people who would say something like this isn’t really art\u2026 but I would argue that they are wrong.<\/p>\n

It made people smile. It made them think. It made them feel. Isn\u2019t that what art\u2026 any art – be it writing or painting or a giant maze \u00a0\u2013 is all about?<\/p>\n

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There was Carole Matthews...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I didn't see any of my books - but fellow LBD author Rachel Gibson was there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Mr Darcy - vampire was welcome...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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... sharing space with some cheerful chic lit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was just such fun!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I was wandering around London’s South Bank the other day, soaking up the atmosphere of my favourite city, when I stumbled across something rather fabulous in the ballroom of the Royal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-travels","category-reading","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}