The 2009 Spring/Summer issue of Golden Handcuffs Reviewis now out. The issue features sections on 'Nathaniel Tarn at 80' and Luisa Valenzuela at 70' along with contributions from more than forty artists and writers, among them Rebecca Brown, Pedro Calderon, Gwendolyn Diaz, Alice Notley, Pat Nolan, Toby Olson, Brian Strang, Rosemarie Waldrop and Raul Zurita.I had a chance to check in with Lou Rowan, the editor and guiding light of GH, to find out more about the history of GH and how things are going as a publisher of a literary/visual magazine in these times.Book Patrol: Merriam Webster defines Golden...
Earliest Known Dust Jacket Found at Oxford
click to enlargeA librarian digging through the archives at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford has found the earliest known example of a publisher's dust jacket. The dust jacket, which had been separated from the book it was created for, was found bound with other booktrade ephemera.It belonged to:Friendship's Offering for 1830. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1829Mark Godburn has more on this historic discovery at his website, 19th Century Dust Jackets.The previous record holder, discovered by John Carter in 1934, was a jacket issued in 1832 on the English annual, The Keepsake for 1833.Image courtesy of Bodleian Library, University...
Author 2.0
It seems like the days of an author simply writing their way to bookshelves across America are coming to end.In his essay in the New York Times, See the Web Site, Buy the Book, J. Courtney Sullivan tracks the evolution of author Web sites and the "sizable industry" that has sprung up to meet the demand.HarperStudio, the new tech-savvy publisher who "believe traditional publishing models are broken and are experimenting with new ones," recently held a Social Networking pow wow for their authors. Here is a pdf of the presentation.Here's a look at role of the author in pre-internet days...
Batman and Kidd
Noted book designer Chip Kidd is also an avid comic book fan. In his recently released book Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan Kidd exposes us to the work of Jiro Kuwata. In the mid-1960's, during the heyday of Batman's television run in America Kuwata was commissioned to bring Batman and Robin to the Japanese manga crowd. Amazingly, the 400 page book represents only half of Kuwata's output during the one year he worked on the project.The book was published in October by Pantheon in a limited hardcover edition and in trade paperbackHere is a video tour of...
Haven’t Books Always Made Great Gifts?
The book as gift mantra is loud and clear this holiday season.BooksAreGreatGifts.com is a new website put together by the American Association of Publishers to encourage books as the ultimate holiday gift. The site features video spots by tons of best-selling and award-winning authors and celebrities from all the leading publishers.The campaign is "An industry-wide effort... established in response to the economic downturn and changing climate in retail-driven markets as a way of stimulating traffic to retail and online booksellers."Here are some of the reasons to give books as gifts that the site offers:"They have shelf life longer than a...