Why an ebook reader won’t displace books.
Charlie Stross explains. Via.
Category: {books}
Books
The Illustrators of Alice
Latest book purchase is this large format volume from 1972, one of a number of interesting art books produced by Academy Editions in the early seventies. I also have their monographs on Odilon Redon, “insane” painter Richard Dadd, and their collection of Félicien Rops‘ pornographic and “Satanist” drawings which remains one of the few Rops books published in English.
Through the Looking-Glass by Mervyn Peake (Allen Wingate, London, 1954).
This collection is worth seeking out if you’re interested in minor Victorian and Edwardian illustrators. The book goes through each chapter of the Alice stories showing examples of illustrated editions by a wide range of illustrators and artists, from Lewis Carroll’s original drawings, Tenniel’s inimitable renderings, then on through the twentieth century, featuring artists such as Peter Blake, Ralph Steadman and even a picture by Max Ernst. The cover drawing is one of my favourites, from Charles Robinson, brother of the more famous William Heath. I also like the pictures by the great Mervyn Peake, one of the few illustrators who seemed able to overcome Tenniel’s dominance and show us something new.
The Alice books are one of the great “standards” (in the jazz sense) of illustration although I can’t say I’ve ever felt the temptation to approach them myself. Loathsome monstrosities from hideously-angled dimensions beyond space and time, yes; small Victorian girls and white rabbits, no.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
New things for March
The Mindscape of Alan Moore, Shadowsnake Films (2007).
The Adventures of Little Lou, Savoy Books (2007).
Two very different works approaching fruition this month. The Alan Moore DVD I’ve been working on since November but the release date is finally approaching so I’ve added the artwork to the relevant pages on this site.
The Adventures of Little Lou is a work of transgressive fiction by Lucy Swan forthcoming from Savoy Books. I’m currently finishing the interior design and the book should be published later this year. This is the front cover layout; more to follow.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Of Moons and Serpents
• Watchmen
• Alan Moore interview, 1988
Cormac McCarthy book covers
Still in pursuit of a Cormac McCarthy obsession I picked up a copy of the (American) Vintage International paperback of Blood Meridian this week, almost solely for the cover. As it turns out it’s also an easier book to read than the UK edition, less tightly bound although the body text in both looks as though it was printed from photocopied galley proofs. The cover design is by Susan Mitchell, with photography by Craig Arness, and forms part of a small series among the Vintage reprint editions. Mitchell resists the understandable temptation to put red on the cover, saving that for McCarthy’s tale of a murderer, Child of God.
The bestsellers that readers don’t finish
The bestsellers that readers don’t finish.
Unpickupable.