S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst - Book Unwrapping

In this video, I will be unwrapping the brand new book by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. Now I use the term 'book' loosely because this really is more than just a book, but more of an interactive experience, and you'll see what I mean once I unwrap this. So a quick word about the creators behind this book. JJ Abrams probably needs no introduction, From the back of the slipcase, JJ Abrams has produced, directed and written films and TV shows including Fringe, Lost, Alias, Mission Impossible and the recent two Star Trek blockbuster movies. In this book, he has joined forces with writer Doug Dorst, author of the novel Alice in Necropolis and the collection The Surf Guru. The book itself looks just like an old-fashioned library book, complete with textured cover, a Dewey Decimal sticker, and old-style font on the cover. You can see that the pages themselves have that old paper feel, with aged coloring to add to the look and feel of an authentic period book. There are two things going on (possibly more). There's the 'book', then there's the conversation going on in the margins. Two distinct sets of handwriting are talking indicated by the two different colors - These margin notes continue through the whole book. So it's really like a book inside a book, where you've got the text of the book, but annotated with these notes of these two readers. These comments on the book as you can see, are handwritten, not printed in a "script" font. Then there's the inserts. The first one that appears is a letter in German. There's over a dozen pieces of ephemera like this; letters, notes, a napkin. You have the thrill of buried treasure while reading it. I read Wired.com's review of this and they say that Reading this Is Like Downloading Lost to Your Brain. I think I can sort of see what they mean. As I mentioned before, this is going to be as much of an experience as a read. Now I can't comment on the book itself as this is just my first impression, but based on what I've seen so far, I can't wait to dive in. Abrams and Dorst describe this as their love letter to the written word. Based on what I've seen so far, it looks like they've succeeded as this truly is a book to be experienced in printed form. These days, I seldom buy printed books anymore, but this is one of those rare exceptions. So well done, JJ! You've done it again!