BOOK REVIEW: Paper Cutting Made Easy (Kanako Yaguchi, Ikeda Books)

"Paper Cutting Made Easy," with a first edition of 8000 copies, has now reached a total of 47000 copies with the present fifth edition in print. When you cut the folded paper along the indicated lines and open it out, a flower-like pattern appears. This is "kirigami," or paper cutting. The author is a paper cutting artist well known in paper art circles. In the present work, she has recorded and classified by country designs which were born during the course of her travels, through Japan, France, America... The diagrams included explain how to cut and fold the designs.
Ikeda Books comments: "So far the book had received almost no media interest, nor had we advertised it. But since its launch, sales have increased steadily at a far greater rate than expected. We plan to continue promoting sales in the future."
According to the Orion bookshop in Tokyo, most of the buyers are middle aged or elderly.
As a part of the 'Train the Brain' boom, it appears to be receiving support from middle aged and elderly citizens," says the Kinokuniya bookshop in Hokkaido.
Most buyers are middle-aged and elderly ladies, but there are also children who buy the book for Spring Holiday homework. Incidentally, Ikeda Books' "Origami Handbook with English Translation," released in January, is also selling satisfactorily, says the Sanseido bookshop in Aichi prefecture.


*Some of the book titles are tentative translations.
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