Bible Design and Binding

How to Carry Your Bible

Q. I like to carry my Bible with me, but I don't want to damage it. Do you have any suggestions about Bible covers or cases? 

A. Absolutely: Don't do it! At least, don't get one of those oversized, zip-around briefcase style thingies for toting around your Bible, a dozen different highlighters, and a year's worth of church bulletins. Or one of those frilly, lace-edged ones Holly Hobby ones. Generally speaking, avoid even the appearance of kitsch. Better to hold your Bible in your hand than to sheath it in one of those things.

Maybe I'm exaggerating for effect. But I'm kind of serious, too. When it comes to protecting your Bible, there are inelegant solutions and elegant ones. The advantage of the inelegant ones is that they're easy. The market is flooded with unattractive Bible covers and holders. Christian Book Distributors has a whole section devoted to them. I don't find any of them aesthetically pleasing, and some are downright depressing. 

So on to the elegant options:

(1) Bag with fitted pocket. This is my typical solution. I've selected briefcases with the problem of keeping a Bible intact in mind, so my current one has pockets to accommodate my "carry" Bible, the ESV Deluxe Compact in pigskin I wrote about recently, and also an Allan's ESV1 if I decide to bring one along (different pocket, of course). This requires some fussiness up front -- finding just the right bag -- but is painless going forward, since it doesn't require keeping track of a case, and doesn't look like you're carrying your Bible around in a protective sheath. This is the most elegant approach, because it gets the job done without calling attention to the fact. 

Above: On the left, my ESV Deluxe Compact is tucked into a book-sized pocket stitched inside a, well, pocket. 

On the right, an ESV3 dropped inside a big side pocket. Nothing else is in there, so it should be fine.

R. L. Allan's NIVC1 in Dark Brown Highland Goatskin

This is going to take some explaining. Let's start with the hat. It's a foldaway trilby from Christys' of London, and as the name suggests, it's claim to fame is that you can fold the thing up and stick it in the red tube. 

Above: A foldaway trilby from Christys' of London, a storage tube, and some gloves.

Below: The same hat, stuffed inside the tube for safe keeping.

Okay, so what does this have to do with the Allan's NIVC1 in dark brown goatskin? Is it starting to dawn on you? "Oh, no he isn't ... "

Yes. I am. Before:

Guilty Pleasure?

So your Bible's signatures are sewn together instead of glued, and the cover is calfskin or even goat, and not some unspecified mystery leather or pleather. Is that something to feel guilty about? You paid twice the going rate, even three times. Or four. Would it have been more pious to go for the cheapest edition and donated the extra cash to a good cause? Is there sometimes a little voice in your head saying something like this: "Instead of focusing on the outside so much, maybe you should trying reading what's inside." 

Since I started writing about the physical form of the Good Book several years ago, one of the most intriguing and baffling phenomena I've observed is the guilty pleasure syndrome. People who act on their frustration with corner-cutting, throwaway Bibles by doing some research and spending some extra dollars to get the kind of quality that used to come standard, only to feel guilty about it afterward. Made to feel guilty, many times.