This image accompanies bookseller John Schulman's article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Next Page: The Book Is Dead? Its Sellers Are Dying?I couldn't quite make out who the artist is, but will post the credit once I find out.The article itself is worth reading as well. Schulman urges us "to remember what bookstores can provide that the Internet cannot,"and uses numerous cinematic examples to remind us of all that can happen at the bookshop.He also believes:that as the years go by there will be "Internet backlash," most readers will return to the shops. It will be like "Night of the...
The Bush vs. Rove Reading Challenge
Errata:Thanks to Adrianne's comment below for informing me that the photo I refer to below of Bush holding a book upside down is not authentic. The details of this doctored image and the original image are discussed at snopes.comMy apologies for the error.In his latest weekly op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, "Bush is a Book Lover", Karl Rove shares his thoughts on George W. Bush's reading life.There is a myth perpetuated by Bush critics that he would rather burn a book than read one. Like so many caricatures of the past eight years, this one is not only...
Letter Chaos
Falling LettersBrazilian artist Marina Camargo has a way with letters. Her photographs and installations often feature letter forms in various states of disarray. Her photograph Falling Letters is a perfect visual metaphor for the current state of many aspects of the book world.Letters in Perspective, 2002Page 93 (The Sheltering Sky), 2008Camille Utterback is another artist who loves playing with letters.Text Rain. Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv, 1999Text Rain is "an interactive installation in which participants use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist...Like rain or...
The Best Looking Books of 2008
The Mayor's Tongue by Nathaniel Rich. Design by Jonathan Gray Joseph Sullivan of The Book Design Review has posted his favorite book covers of 2008.He offers 27 shining examples of contemporary cover design. You can also, through the end of the year, vote for your favorite. Currently, David Pearson's design of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is in the lead.The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical ReproductionDesign by David PearsonOne not on list that deserves mention is Charlotte Strick's design of Roberto Bolano's 2666. The book, published by Farrar, Strauss and...
Dante on the Xbox
In his recent piece in the New York Times, "Becoming Screen Literate," Kevin Kelly talked about how "when technology shifts, it bends the culture." About 500 years ago, Gutenberg's invention of movable type and the advent of print culture displaced oral culture and "now invention is again overthrowing the dominant media. A new distribution-and-display technology is nudging the book aside and catapulting images, and especially moving images, to the center of the culture. We are becoming people of the screen."One prime example of this tectonic shift is Dante's Inferno, a new "third person action and adventure game based on the...