Look Up

I’ve decided that starting in 2017 this blog will be updated monthly, at the start of each month (unless there's something that just can't wait). It’s takes too much time to come up with something each week, and that's time needed elsewhere (lots of projects planned for ’17!). Plus, the Internet has become unbearably toxic: I have resolved to visit it as infrequently as possible.

To wind up 2016, I thought I’d mention a few books that have made the year interesting. These are not necessarily new books, just new to me.

Dewi Lewis published (in 2015, I think) a beautiful collection of Nigel Grierson’s photographs. Signed copies were available from the publisher earlier this year; not sure about now. Fans of the 4AD label will recognize Grierson’s work. I hadn’t appreciated how much of Vaughan Oliver’s work was a collaboration with Grierson. Stunning images, most of them primarily abstract and textural, in a well-produced book.

Barbara Hodgson’s Mrs Delany Meets Herr Haeckel was a joy to print & publish. Smaller in scale and more intimate than her expansive collaborations with Claudia, she managed to conceive of & produce a book that simultaneously feels antiquarian and modern. Kool.

The emblem books of Gabriel Rollenhagen, with stunning engravings by Crispin de Passe, for reasons that will be explained early in the New Year.

The Universal History From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Present… (1744), part two of the seventh volume only; because it was found in a jumble of (much newer) books, in a full calf binding that had been expertly rebacked, and because the quality of the paper and printing was a salve to the atrocious printing and mediocre paper from a 17th century English book I’ve been spending some time with. Again, more details to follow. While this volume of The Universal History covers just a slice of the overall topic, and the middle third is an index, the final third is an abbreviated chronology of the world from Adam & Eve to Mahommed’s capture of Trabezond (1642). 

David Sylvian’s opus Hypergraphia, for all the reasons previously mentioned.

A few other creatively-inspiring things from the year: Rag & Bone shirts, John Varvatos boots & jackets, Tomas Weiss’ el culto label, Pheonix York’s debut album & loscil's latest, Agave (handmade) jeans, and every year, Lamy pens & pencils. Pax omnis.

Aurora Borealis...

...appeared on the wall beside my bed last week.

Quickly...

David Sylvian kindly posted a note about Aurora Teardrops on his Facebook page last week, which prompted some action. Just to clarify/confirm: some copies a still available from Books Tell You Why and Vamp & Tramp, though not many. Probably better to go directly to their sites than work through something like Abebooks.

Alert!

A copy of a great Allen Press (leaf) book is listed kinda cheap on ebay right now: The Great Polyglot Bibles Including A Leaf From The Complutensian Of Alcalá, 1514-17. Beautifully printed on a handpress (the book & the original leaf!) etc etc. Listed here for probably less than half the usual price, probably because the box looks like it has a few marks etc. But that's what boxes are for! This isn't something I have an interest in, other than aesthetic. (I already have a copy or I wouldn't be telling you about this one.) If you'd rather have the whole thing instead of just a page, here's a facsimile set (check out the raised bands on the deluxe binding - yikes!)...

Apologia (sort of)...

I scorned the recently published Godfather diary in the last post, especially the paperback version. I have since seen a copy, and must dial back my scorn - not fully, but some. It's not really a paperback: it's sewn and put into a case of laminated flexible boards. It still probably isn't skookum enough for the text block's weight, but it's not a "paperback." So all comments about the publisher still stand.