Laufer's book constructions simultaneously operate as a three-dimensional aesthetic painting and as conceptual satire that references literature, history, politics, and gender issues. The actual structure of the book appears to function as an arena or a theatrical setting for his staged personal dramas and commentary. The content of Laufer's social commentary is implied by the text appearing on the book's cover jacket. In these non-functional books in which the process of association is crucial, Laufer mediates objects and images imbued with cultural references. Often an inversion of context and meaning is suggested through the actual shape of the book, the treatment of its decorated surface, and the actual data presented.
Titles also play an essential role in the signification of each individual piece.
His fanciful humor is especially vibrant in such chimerical relief sculptural texts such as Diagnosing Uncertainty, The Pocket Cyclopedia of Systematic Doubt and The Skeptic's Catechism. References to a real event, place or thing becomes the jumping off point for Laufer's conceptual fiction. Conceptual issues and psychological content permeate the individualistic narrative of Laufer's art. Although the surfaces of his trompe l'oeil wood sculpture books do convey information through their carefully painted-text covers and spines, the contents of each book is locked in a type of silent serenity by the physical constraints of each object. The idiosyncratic quality of each book tends to imply that information is deliberately being withheld by the author who chooses to present only surface data.