AbeBooks' Reading Copy

To mark the launch of the Penguin English Library, Penguin commissioned this sweet animated video from the critically-acclaimed director Woof Wan-Bau. The video depicts one lucky (and familiar!) pengun finding his way to the glorious land of books. The Penguin English Library is: “…100 of the best novels in the English language. These are books [...]

A treat for the fine booklover, or anyone who enjoys the excellent artistry of bookbinding: The Kelliegram Binding. Kelliegram bindings often involved intricate leather work, such as leather inlays or onlays to create an image, a scene, or a mosaic effect. It was common for the Kelliegram binders to choose an engraving from the body [...]

The La Times’ Jacket Copy blog pointed me towards this book – Woodcut by Bryan Nash Gill, published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book offers detailed prints of tree trunk cross sections, including oak, maple, locust, ash and cedar. There are also images of the wood blocks used to create the prints and accounts of [...]

Engraving is one of the oldest and most historically significant methods of illustrating a book, and refers to the impression of a pattern, design, text or image into a hard surface. The impressed surface becomes known as a printing plate, and can be used repeatedly to create multiple prints as required, with varying degrees of [...]

This will be a breath of fresh air for those of you who have been groaning under the relentless weight of the media inundation around 50 Shades of Grey. You’ll find No shades of grey here – it’s all black and white book covers. Gorgeous, monochrome, simple, stylistic gems. And we’ve found that a complete [...]

What takes a first edition of The Great Gatsby from nice to priceless? Hint: It’s original, it’s celestial, and it’s gorgeous. Watch our video for Fitzgerald-fueled finery. Want to know more about F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby? Read our feature on this legend of literature, including an interview with an expert from The [...]

Someone at beatbookcovers.com took a lot of time and effort and has put together an enormous collection of covers of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. I had no idea there were so many. Here are four of my favorites: Check out the others.

Move over, Superman – you’re not the only one who can perform a quick change in a telephone booth. According to the New York Times, an architectural designer from the Upper West Side is the real hero of this story. John H. Locke has devised a system by which he can quickly enter an empty [...]

Miroslav Sasek , who often published as M. Sasek, was a 20th-century Czech author and illustrator, best known for his This Is… series of children’s books. The series showed the sights, sounds and history of various regions of the world through the use of vibrant, colorful drawing and engaging, relatable writing. Published from 1959-1974, several [...]

Just for fun, I created a grid of nine snippets from iconic, classic, well-known book covers. Think you know any of all of them? Leave your guesses in the comments below. I will post the answers in the next day or two.