Book cover appeals to hoarders, compulsive organizers
In a video posted recently by Penguin, photographer Dan Tobin Smith reveals how he created a stunning cover image for the UK paperback edition of Mark Miodownik’s book Stuff Matters.… Read more »
The charming NYC guidebook the Czech secret police didn’t want you to see
Fifty years after it was first written and illustrated, a stylish book about life in New York City is getting a new life of its own. The book, New York:… Read more »
Calvin & Hobbes creator breaks silence, releases new art
Don’t get too excited—Calvin & Hobbes aren’t returning to print anytime soon. But a new documentary about newspaper comics, appropriately titled Stripped, has inspired Bill Watterson, the creator of… Read more »
Modern-day samizdat: publishing LGBT voices in Russia
As the 2014 Winter Olympics head into their second week, all eyes are on the sporting events and political controversies unfolding now in Sochi. Attracting less attention is Russian Prime… Read more »
Examining the philosophical implications of the latest celebrity news
If you are a human being with eyes and ears, and perhaps an Internet connection, you have probably heard about some of this week’s celebrity gossip: Justin Bieber was arrested,… Read more »
Kafka’s Metamorphosis transforms once again
In 2011, the designer Peter Mendelsund made waves with his stunning series of covers for Franz Kafka. Published in new editions by Schocken, the covers were a radical departure from… Read more »
Nigerian feminist literature’s crossover moment
The Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was already having a pretty good year—she was named one of Foreign Policy’s “Top Global Thinkers,” and her third novel, Americanah, was published to… Read more »
Why was Morrissey’s Autobiography revised for the U.S. market?
British fans of Morrissey who hoped to learn details of the former Smiths frontman’s personal life from his Autobiography, published in the U.K. this fall by Penguin Classics, may have been disappointed—he… Read more »
How to make a book, in 1925
This silent film, produced in 1925 by the FBI (that’s the Federation of British Industry), gives viewers an inside look at the printing process of the Oxford University Press. Beginning… Read more »
A new awards show for British book design
Design competitions have always been controversial affairs—after all, the standard for excellence is so subjective that the results will always be skewed by the personal tastes of whoever the judges… Read more »