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Canadian Kickstarter for ‘Book Mustaches’ starts Movember off right

(Book Mustache Kickstarter)

The month of facial hair for a good cause is upon us, and three Canadians want everyone to be sporting some –– on their books.

The Book Mustache is “a beautiful reading instrument,” according to its Toronto-based creators.

Designed to look like a classic “handlebar” or “imperial” ‘stache, the plastic tool fits over your thumb so that, when held against your reading material, its curvy sides keep the pages open and flat.

Inventor Lazar Demin explained how his lifelong passion for reading got sidetracked by modern life – but it wasn’t that he lacked the time to indulge in books, he simply did not have enough hands.

“I realized the reasons holding me back were completely silly: I needed to hold on to a pole while riding the bus, I needed to drink my coffee, I needed to have one hand free at all times and reading got in the way of that,” Demin wrote on the Book Mustache Kickstarter page.

“That’s why I came up with the Book Mustache; worn on your thumb, it keeps your reading material wide open, freeing your other hand to do whatever you need to do at the time,” he wrote.

He and his partners went through several versions of the product, manufactured using an industrial 3D printer and then “refined” by hand. The prototypes will be used to create the injection moulds to mass produce the Book Mustache, which is what the funding is for.

The “simple and stylish tool” promises to comfortably fit anyone’s thumb and work on paperbacks, hardcovers, comics and magazines. As for why it’s a shaped like a mustache: for fun, as well as “a touch of class and self-expression.”

Each Book Mustache costs $8.99, with discounts offered for large volume purchases.

As of Monday, the project had 64 backers and $874 of its $9,000 goal, which they have until late Movember to reach.