The damp air there made the pages swell and the spine glue fail. I had to redo the whole binding after I got home. Pack your books in sealed bags if you're headed somewhere wet.
I thought glue would dry faster, but now all my endpapers are bubbled and ugly.
I was helping my neighbor clean out their attic last week. We found a box of really old books, and one had this weird stitching I'd never seen. It looked like the stitches were hidden under the spine, almost invisible from the outside. I tried to copy it on a practice journal, but the thread kept pulling too tight... Any ideas on how to manage that tension? I'm curious if this was a common method back in the day. Would love to hear from anyone who's come across something similar.