Of The BookBook

Part of the reason I've decided I should start doing some more exercise (hence the pole dancing, *ahem*) is my fear that, thanks to spending the majority of my days hunched over a desk, I am going to turn into a wizened, hump-backed old crone before I hit thirty. It's not just brooding over my books that worries me, either, but also the process of hauling my reading material and laptop to the library in the first place. With my bulging laptop case slung across me, I go along the street veering to one side like a sailing ship struggling against a strong breeze, so actually it's perhaps not my back I need to worry about, but rather one shoulder ending up about five inches higher than the other.

It's not just the physical discomfort that troubles me, however, but also just the inescapable ugliness of my laptop case, which is a very plain, functional black one into which no aesthetic thought has been put whatsoever. I've been thinking for some time about buying something rather prettier to replace it, and having come across these MacBook covers (known as the BookBook) from design company Twelve South, I wonder if my search might be over before it's even started. Twelve South designs accessories exclusively for Mac users, of which I am one (and a very happy convert since my move to my shiny new MacBook at the start of my D.Phil), and I came across them thanks to the ever-wonderful India Knight's Posterous. Do take a look at India Knight's site if you haven't already, by the way, as it's a wonderful source of shopping/present-buying/design/generally tempting information. I also heartily recommend her lovely book The Shops, which is a fantastic shopping guide but also happens to be very well-written and funny. How can you go wrong with a woman who is a fan of Georgette Heyer, the Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, and eyebrow threading. Anything she suggests is going to be worth checking out (well, ok, she did recommend Ugg Boots in her book, I suppose, but nobody's perfect).

Anyway, to get back to the BookBooks. They're just the right side of kitsch and you can probably tell right away why I like them:

BookBook MacBook cover, $79.99

The inside is all soft and snuggly to cushion your precious little MacBook and the covers are hard and tough to protect it from harm. The website suggests that one of the benefits is that the covers also disguise your MacBook and therefore make it less subject to theft. I'm not sure this would work for me, however: in the circles I move in, something that looks like an old book is probably more vulnerable to wandering hands than a spanking new laptop!

The only problem, of course, is that the BookBook is only a protective cover: I'd still need something to put it in to transport it and my books to and fro. So even if I were to give in to temptation with this little fellow, I'd still be able to seek out a pretty laptop travel case as well. Isn't that what's known as a win-win situation? In any case, surely I can't go wrong in buying something called a BookBook, for, as Sir W said in his 1600 essay 'Of the Obseruation, and vse of things',

'all kindes of bookes are profitable'.