"Rock will always represent the extravagant, the flash, the fantasy. That's what it's all about. These pictures are a memento to that dream." Guy Peellaert in an interview in Penthouse Magazine April 1974Belgian artist and illustrator Guy Peellaert died last week. His seminal 1973 book Rock Dreams provided us a visual feast of rock and roll's biggest stars.David Hepworth remembers Peellaert in his piece, Guy Peellaert the man who invented rock and roll, at Word Magazine.Peellaert illustrated a few album covers as well including David Bowie's 1974 album Diamond Dogs which reached number 1 on the UK charts. This cover...
Life on Google #1 : Book Parade
With the help of Google millions of images from the archives of Life magazine are now available for our enjoyment.To mark this historic event Book Patrol brings you Life on Google - a new series featuring images from this vast visual repository.Above:Children parading the books selected for the William Allen White children's book awards.Americus, Kansas. 1959.Photograph taken by A. Y. OwenLink
The Bush Presidential Library : "A Halloween House of Horrors"
During her appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show last night Tina Brown, currently founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, had this to say about what Bush is doing during his final months in office:"One of the things that I'm told at the moment is that Bush is entirely focused right now on his legacy, on his library," she said. "That's all he really wants to talk about is his library. Because he's trying to build a legacy. But quite honestly, one can only think that that library is a Halloween House of Horrors. From the Guantanamo room to the...
Knock, Knock : The Subscription Book Business
click to enlargeIn nineteenth century America door-to-door bookselling was a big thing. As the country grew westward and new technologies provided cheaper production and transportation opportunities subscription bookselling became a major component of the publishing world. The book became a commodity. By some estimates by the end of the nineteenth century 70% of all books sold were sold by subscription.Agents Wanted : Subscription Publishing in America, an online exhibit at University of Pennsylvania, provides a great introduction to this part of publishing history. It features items from the seminal collection of canvassing books by Michael Zinman.From Lynne Farrington's introduction:Subscription publishers...
Gems of the Private Press Movement
If you love the book arts and live anywhere near Portland, Oregon, you must come to the beautiful Collins Gallery in the equally lovely Multnomah County Library and linger over GEMS OF THE PRIVATE PRESS MOVEMENT: Kelmscott, Ashendene, Doves, Golden Cockerel. The exhibition, curated by John Wilson Room librarian Jim Carmin, artfully showcases both holdings from the libray's rare book collection and loans primarily from the collection of the estimable Jack Walsdorf who also gifted some of the remarkable rarities in this show to the library. Both were present for introductory remarks at this Saturday afternoons packed openning.What struck me...