I’m a big fan of the work of Christopher Priest. Many US readers will only be aware of him through a little movie titled The Prestige, based on his book by the same name. This past week I picked up the UK hardcover copy of his book The Islanders and have placed it high on the to-be-read-pile. However, the reason for blogging it here is what’s on the back of the dust jacket: a word cloud from the book. I’ve seen this done for books by third-parties, but this is the first time I’ve known of it being done by the author/publisher and placed prominently enough to give you a rough idea of what the books about. Though, this being a Christopher Priest novel, I wouldn’t take any of the information at face value. (I do not know if this image appears on any of the US editions, but the front cover is the same so maybe it does.)
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
I’m a big fan of the work of Christopher Priest. Many US readers will only be aware of him through a little movie titled The Prestige, based on his book by the same name. This past week I picked up the UK hardcover copy of his book The Islanders and have placed it high on the to-be-read-pile. However, the reason for blogging it here is what’s on the back of the dust jacket: a word cloud from the book. I’ve seen this done for books by third-parties, but this is the first time I’ve known of it being done by the author/publisher and placed prominently enough to give you a rough idea of what the books about. Though, this being a Christopher Priest novel, I wouldn’t take any of the information at face value. (I do not know if this image appears on any of the US editions, but the front cover is the same so maybe it does.)