Dear friends, Thank you for being a part of Book Patrol this past year. Your support is greatly appreciated. Wishing all of you and your loved ones a happy and healthy holiday season and a peaceful new year. Yours in books, Michael Pictured: Merry Mirror (2010) by Michael Johansson
The Ark Booktower
For the 1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition in 2010 the Victoria & Albert Museum invited nineteen architects to submit proposals for structures that examine notions of refuge and retreat. From these nineteen, seven were selected for construction at full-scale and lucky for us one of them was The Ark Booktower by Rintala Eggertsson architects. 6,000 books fill the space and there is a reading space at the core of the 3-story tower. All the spines face in so one must enter to discover the treasures within. Introduction to the installation: As we are reaching the end of the first decade of...
Harlin Quist: The coolest publisher of children’s books you never heard of
Harlin Quist just might be the coolest publisher of children's books you never heard of. The brainchild of Harlin Bloomquist, Quist published over sixty children's books between 1966-1984. They featured some of the finest European and American authors and illustrators of the day and helped establish the careers of many young artists. They are unmistakable in design and offered an original, fresh look in childrens' book publishing. Quist had a background in theater and then worked in publishing, first as an editor at Crowell-Collier, then at Dell, where he worked on the first picture paperback books before going out on his own. Here is what some of the...
Straight from the baby’s mouth
From the time when her son was 11 months old until he turned 18 months Lenka Clayton extracted 64 objects from his mouth. 63 of them are represented in this brilliant visual catalog, 63 Objects Taken from My Son's Mouth. The one item not included is a sachet of rat poison that her son put in his mouth at 11 months. That object was flushed down the toilet while mom was in a panic. Details: 63 Objects Taken from My Son's Mouth, 2014. Designed by MASS MoCA's Director of Design; Brett Yasko, with color photographs by Tom Little. Letterpress cover...
Seattle: The Book Buying Capital of America
The results are in and Seattle takes the cake when it comes to buying books. For her New York Time Opinion Piece, What People Buy and Where, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett utilized the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey to track differences among cities in household spending in various categories from 2007 to 2012. In the book category Seattle ran away from the field by spending a whopping 68% more than the national average on books! Full disclosure: I live here and I buy a lot of books :-)