World's Most Expensive Book Draws Crowds at NYPL

The New York Public Library is in temporary possession of a new coffee-table book that weighs in at 61-lbs. The NY Times reports that the rarity was recently hand-made "by scholars, artists and artisans," and is called Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano. The book cost around $126K to make (what recession?) and will be on view through Monday. The cover of the book is "a bas-relief depiction of Michelangelo’s 'Madonna of the Steps,' sculptured on a piece of white marble from one of the Polvaccio quarries in Carrara, Italy, that supplied stone for the master’s statues." Decadence lives! ArtInfo reports that according to "a fine-art publication house in Italy whose charitable foundation donated this copy to the New York library, the book is intended to be 'a provocation in the age of the Internet.'" If you've got some cash to burn, 99 limited edition copies will be made, 20 of which have already been sold. Library president, Paul LeClerc, says: “It is one of the single greatest books made in the last 100 years. There is nothing else at this level.”