Nik Scott thinks a lot about books. He has illustrated over 100 of them and his syndicated cartoons appear in newspapers all over the world.He has shared his thoughts on the paper vs. electronic divide in a 2012 op-ed Do E-Books Furnish a Room where he confesses "to being an e-book junkie." Scott concedes that e-books will have a "huge impact" but he is also ready to "bet $10 and a shiny red apple that regular books will become even more desirable once the dust settles." "Stay strong" says Scott "Things will get better but it’ll take a good five to...
On Joyce, ‘Ulysses’ and Hemingway: A few minutes with Sylvia Beach
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDOUcvb2hWs[/youtube] Sylvia Beach, the founder of the seminal Shakespeare & Company Bookshop in Paris and the matriarch of the literary bookshop, was interviewed in the 1950's about the shop and her relationship with James Joyce and publishing 'Ulysses' and her friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Beautiful stuff.
A Strange Jewel: The Morgan Library and a Sixteenth-Century Book of Hours
The Van Damme Hours They call this beautiful book The Van Damme Hours after its Flemish scribe, Antonius van Damme. It was illuminated by Simon Bering. Though no one knows for sure who commissioned the book there is ample documentation on the short lineage of who owned the book before it was acquired by J.P. Morgan in 1911. It all started with John Strange "a British dilettante whose eclectic interests included everything from sea sponges to Venetian paintings." Luckily his interests also included books. Lots of them. His library consisted of near 80,000 volumes and it took fifty-six days to auction...
Library Infographics: 1930’s style
Nowadays, the visualization of data is all the rage. It seems each new study or piece of research is turned into an image.I'm not so sure this was as common in the 1930's and 40's when these visual aids were printed.The series of 28 posters were produced under the supervision of noted librarian Ruby Ethel Cundiff for the Library School Course in Teaching the Use of the Library at the George Peabody College for Teachers.These examples were salvaged by Char Booth from a throw-away pile at her library school in 2003 and were digitized by Gabriel Jaramillo at the Claremont...
Joe McKendry illustrates Angelika Taschen’s favorite reads
Stefan Zweig’s Marie Antoinette; by the pool in Argentario, TuscanyLast year the arts and culture website Nowness had a chat with Angelika Taschen on the novels that shaped her life.Taschen, the former wife of the renowned publisher Benedict Taschen and the daughter of bookshop owners, chose eight gems and then Joe McKendry went to work illustrating them.Here are the fruits of his labor. The captions refer to the book and the place read:Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables; in hospital, CologneGottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan; a camping site, EnglandHans Fallada’s The Drinker; Ayurvedic resort, Sri LankaThomas Bernhard’s The Loser; in my bed, BerlinHans...