As part of Edinburgh's citywide reading campaign, One Book - One Edinburgh, 25,000 books will be given away free to its citizens!One must appreciate the Utopian seeds in such a gesture but it is also an idea laden with Orwellian overtones.Here's the deal:-"The books will be handed out free to everyone from coffee shops to schools and libraries in a bid to get as many people as possible reading the same book at the same time".-25,000 copies in three new editions of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped have been published for this event - a paperback, a new graphic novel by...
Naked Man Bookseller
Book Patrol's new entry in the YouTube Hall of Fame.Must be something in the desert.
The Devil’s [Publishing] Dictionary
The Devil's Dictionary was Ambrose Bierce's comic take on Noah Webster's Dictionary. It was originally published as the Cynic's Word Book by Doubleday, Page and Company in 1906. The title was later changed when Bierce was editing his collected works in 1911. Since it's publication the concept has spurned hundreds of imitations.The latest versions to hit the blogwaves deal with the book and publishing industry.Here are some highlights:Cover Art - the design of the book jacket, generally produced in-house by the publisher's art department, all of whom are near-sighted psychotics who never actually read the book and routinely forget to...
Book Design Meets Album Design
Here is the dust jacket design for the new book "The Scientist as Rebel" by the seminal scientist Freeman Dyson: and here is the cover design for the American release of "Is This It" the 2001 debut album by the influential New York band The Strokes: A visual marriage of two distinct disciplines, united by an image of particle collisions.How is that for a new relationship in the arts.Music to my eyes!Thanks to Joseph at The Book Design Review for the lead
Literary Van Gogh & Still Life
"I have a more or less irresistible passion for books, and the constant need to improve my mind, to study, if you like, just as I need to eat my daily bread..."letter to Brother Theo, 1880A few years ago to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Van Gogh's birth Radio Netherlands broadcast a program entitled "Vincent's Bookshelf" by David Swatling.In Vincent Van Gogh's letters there are almost 800 literary references to work by more than 150 authors.Balzac, Poe, Goethe, Bronte, Dickens are among the vast array of authors Van Gogh read.One of Van Gogh's earliest paintings is a Still Life of...