Reading Copy Book Blog

The Guardian, a newspaper that always been well known for its use of creative photography, has a picture gallery of authors who have been appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival. The Margaret Atwood picture is a bit scary, Richard Dawkins has bushy eyebrows and someone needs to have a word with Richard Ford about his choice in sweaters (purple never works, sunshine).

The Wall Street Journal highlights some hefty and expensive coffee table books from Taschen but they pale when compared to the daddy of all Taschen books - GOAT (that stands for Greatest Of All Time - a very expensive limited edition book about boxing genius Muhammad Ali.)

The Guardian judges the Booker Prize contenders by their covers and finds the name of Peter Ho Davies amusing. There’s nothing funny about Davies, I can assure you.

Emma Barnes, from the wonderful UK publisher Snowbooks, explains why book covers are important on The Guardian’s blog. Snowbooks publishes Mark Ames’ Going Postal in the UK.

If you need a break from Harry Potter (and who doesn’t at this point?), Cover Browser is a large collection of comic book covers. Relive your youth or hunt for a missing issue. A fun time waster.

While reading the paper this weekend I saw an article about a local couple, Pat and Rosemarie Keough of Saltspring Island, who produced a wonderful limited edition book of photographs called Antartica

Limited to 950 copies, the large coffee table sized book features “the most stunning and diverse portfolios ever assembled about this great white continent.”

This beautiful book was assembled to raise awareness about the plight of the continent with all of the net proceeds are being put towards international albatross conservation programs.

Happened across another book art project…

“Vito Drago is an Italian-born artist who studied firstly in Milan and then at Central St Martin’s School of Art, London. His work reflects his obsession with the materiality of books.”

View some of the work.

I’ll just leave this one for your comments…

This may be a day late for yesterday’s holiday to the south - but still somewhat fitting. Welcome Books has recently released a deluxe edition of the Sam Fink illustrated Constitution of the United States of America. The illustrations within and presentation of the volume are incredibly beautiful.

You can see some of the images and read a short interview with Sam Fink over at The Morning News.

I know I have a tendency to make a lot of these type of posts - but I can’t help but be drawn to the visual world.

Photographer Cara Barer has some captivating images of contorted and manipulated books (See Gallery 1 and 2). Particularily striking the more abstracted - almost cellular - they become.

You probably think you’ve seen everything Harry Potter-related? Well, AbeBooks.com has a totally unique Harry Potter bookshelf (pictured) built entirely from actual Harry Potter books by an incredibly talented sculptor who specialises in book art….and we’re giving it away.

But here’s the catch - we’ll give it away to the person who comes up with finest poem devoted to Harry Potter and the whole Hogwarts phenomenon. We’re launching the contest today and you’ve got plenty of time to work on your Potter Poetry - the contest closes on July 6 and is open to anyone. You can submit any sort of poem - a limerick, an elegy, a sonnet. Just be creative - AbeBooks staff are judging the poems so make us smile.

For instance, this poem isn’t going to win….

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Is Harry dead?

The ending’s taboo.

We’re also got a fascinating interview with Jim Rosenau, the sculptor who was commissioned by AbeBooks to create this unique piece of art that’s also a functional item of furniture. Find out more about Jim and his work here.

Good luck.

Helvetica is 50 years old.

Some rare drawings of Winnie the Pooh by the book’s illustrator Ernest H Shepard are up for grabs. If you can’t make the auction, you could always pick up this.

Last weekend, the Alcuin Society announced the winners of its annual 25th Awards For Excellence in Book Design in Canada. The judges selected 34 winning books from more than 250 entries from almost 100 publishers in nine provinces.  

The Alcuin Society is a particularly interesting organisation based in Vancouver - just across the Georgia Strait from us, here in Victoria on Vancouver Island. A non-profit society, it is devoted to the support and appreciation of fine books. I wondered where its name originated and a brief search of their site told me:

The name “Alcuin” honours the memory of Alcuin of York (c. 735 to 804 A.D.), Abbot of St. Martin at Tours, a man who cared deeply about books and literacy. As Charlemagne’s “Minister of Culture”, and a respected teacher, Alcuin encouraged the study and preservation of ancient texts, contributed to the development of the lowercase alphabet and helped establish numerous schools and libraries.

Look out for the Society’s program of exhibits featuring beautiful books at various locations across Canada this year.

CBC reports that a rare Antoine de Saint-Exupéry illustration has been discovered in Japan. The artwork is from the classic children’s book The Little Prince.

I remember being absolutely fascinated by the story as a child - and the concept of such a tiny planet utterly baffled me at the time.