Note: The image that originally appeared in this post has been removed at the request of Mission Media, the public relations firm for Burj Dubai. Apparently it was leaked and "not approved" by the powers that be.*****************************When the Burj Dubai opens early next year it will it be the world's tallest building.In the lobby will be a copy of what has to be the world's tallest book.The 'Burj Dubai Opus' stands 15 feet tall.Emaar Properties, the developers of the Burj Dubai, have hired luxury publisher Kraken Opus to produce the book. The book will contain plans of the design and...
"A Few Principles of Publishing" by David Godine
This essay by David Godine appears in his latest catalog. As "pluck" would have it since the catalog was released word came that the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to J.M.G. Le Clézio whose novel The Prospector was first published in America by Godine. Congratulations David!***********************A Few Principles of Publishing Somewhere, in my distant past, I read that publishing requires three ingredients: patience, perseverance, and pluck. I suppose the same could be said for any business, but at least these three prerequisites (and perhaps a fourth – pesos) apply with particular precision to this profession. Success, if it comes...
Super Thursday in the UK
No, it's not primary season in the UK but today marks the official beginning of the Christmas season for the publishing world.Close to 800 titles are being published today, about three times more than on an average day, all in hopes that they will crack the top ten and land in Christmas stockings throughout the kingdom.Mark Brown's piece in the Guardian, "Book world's Super Thursday launches 800 titles in race for Christmas top 10"
Poor Richard’s Biblomac
Though it sounds like a cross between Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and an e-reader by Apple, the Biblomac was a short lived newspaper for the book world. It debuted in New York in August of 1940 and lasted all of 3 issues.Stephen Ferguson at Princeton University's Rare Book and Special Collection blog unearthed a copy of the premier issue and shares an excerpt of the lead editorial written by one of the publishers, Herbert Burstein. For the most part, Poor Richard’s Biblomac reflects an idea we have - an idea that anyone whose stock-in-trade is books - the librarian,...
A New Wave of Political Poetry
It is difficult/to get the news from poems/ yet men die miserably every day/ for lack/ of what is found there. -William Carlos WilliamsNeed a little reality check after bearing witness to the madness of the Republican Convention?The newly published anthology of contemporary political poetry, State of the Union : 50 Political Poems, by Wave Books might help.The compilation is edited by Joshua Beckman and Matthew Zapruder and features the work of John Ashbery, Anselm Berrigan, Lucille Clifton, CAConrad, Peter Gizzi, James Tate, John Yau, Tao Lin, Eileen Myles, Michael Palmer, Wang Ping, and many others.Heidi Broadhead has a nice...