It's taken 42 years but it looks like we have come full circle. In the spring of 1968 Richard Brautigan published Please Plant This Book a collection of eight seed packets with each bearing an original poem. Now the folks at the Italian company Gartenkulture have come up with a line of books turned into pots. Here's what Helena Ekberg had to say about the project at her post over at Casa E Cose: Books are to me one of the more precious art objects around. And they are originally trees that are natures masterpieces. What if we could merge the...
Better or Not? Better World Books adds Donation Boxes, A Book Drive for Haiti and a Partnership with Powell’s to the Mix
It has been a couple of years since we profiled Better World Books here at Book Patrol. I thought it a good time touch base with them. I talked with BWB co-founder Xavier Hegelsen about some of their recent initiatives. Though I still have my doubts about whether or not their model is one that is beneficial to the book world at large it is clear that are continuing to increase their footprint on the book universe.Better World Books warehouse in Mishawaka, Ind. Image by Steve Kagan for The New York TimesBook Donation BoxesBook Patrol: I did a story back...
Australian Library’s Exhibit Is Unbearably Cute
Blinky Bill Made His Debut In 1933, And Has Been The Best Pal Of Australian Kids Ever Since.Wall, Dorothy, 1894-1942. Blinky Bill : the quaint little Australian / story and decorations by Dorothy Wall. (Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1940).(Image Courtesy Of Monash University Library.)For American kids, it's Curious George or The Cat In The Hat. For English kids it's Peter Rabbit. But for Australian kids the most beloved mischief-maker in children's literature is a koala named Blinky Bill. A new exhibit at Australia's Monash University Library highlights the boy-like bear (okay, koala's aren't really bears but you get the...
Art Students Rework The Wizard of Oz
Type designer and illustrator Jessica Hische came up with this project for her students at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia:"I decided to assign one main project with multiple components — book cover design + endpapers, titlepage, and bookplate for a special edition novelization of The Wizard of Oz.""This was literally the first time some of the students had worked with type, so I was expecting to have to do a lot of hand-holding. But, after a very brief lesson, they returned the following week with shockingly amazing type treatments!"You can see more cover designs and all the corresponding...
Treasure Discovered at Rare Book Round-Up
The L.A. Times Festival of Books yielded a bonanza for the woman who came to the Southern California Chapter of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America’s Rare Book Round-Up booth for a free appraisal.A book the woman bought for a dollar at a garage sale was worth $6,000. Suffice it to say, she plotzed when informed.A metaphysical ambulance is routinely parked nearby to handle such situations. Treated for acute swoon, she recovered fully and danced a jig all the way home.The volume she presented for appraisal was A Western Trip by Carl E. Schmidt (1904). A lavishly produced book bound...