I own a lot a limited edition books. I have one bound in tye-dyed denim, another bound in lizard skin, and one who’s cover features highly polished aluminum so much so that is cam with white gloves lest you leave a fingerprint on it.
However, recently I discovered Centipede Press and I must say that their books are truly works of art despite not using any particularly unique materials. My first title from them was Slob by Rex Miller with an introduction by Ray Garton. To say that this title is hand crafted and well bound would be an understatement.
Bu then I got a package in the mail yesterday. This box contained the Don Brautigam Artist Portfolio published by Centipede Press. Here’s the official description:
This large, 10 × 14 collection covers the entire artistic career of Don Brautigam. Well-known and widely acknowledged for having revolutionized paperback cover art back in the 1970s, Don passed away earlier this year. But his legacy lives on in this beautiful, oversized edition. This volume includes all of his Stephen King and Dean Koontz covers, including Night Shift, The Stand, The Running Man, Dragon Tears, Strangers, and a lot more. The first 30 copies are signed by Don Brautigam and Dean Koontz. Bound in cloth with a printed front panel, and enclosed in a cloth slipcase.
My photos don’t do it justice (for example. each print is on very glossy paper) but I’m at a complete loss for words beyond what you just read. Regardless, here they are and I can’t say to the publisher just how proud I am to own one of these beautiful books.
It’s been done for a week or two but I wanted to clean up a few details before posting the final photos. They’re all available on flickr but here’s my favorite showing the walls o’ books along with the two-computer desk corner. (Click on the photo for the whole set.)
Total cost about $750 and an uncountable number of hours over about a dozen weekends.
In case you were distinctly unimpressed by my sales figures, check out Translation of the New Testament from Coptic into Latin by David WIlkins. It took 191 years to sell all 500 copies what were printed by Oxford University Press.
How would it have been if today’s popular internet websites and their web applications were artistically reinvented and designed as the 1960s book covers, so as to provide an insight into how these social networking sites may look if they were designed about 40 or 50 years ago? This innovating and enthralling series of images, in fact throw light on the illustrator’s creative thinking-process. The famous French autodidact graphic designer Stephane Massa-Bidal whose leading concept known as “Retrofuturs” (a mix of past, present and future), normally creates his designs with a minimalist approach and a retro touch.
I’m going through the list of old blog-post drafts and deleting many of them. However, a few are worthy of posting even after years of sitting in the draft bin. Here’s one from Bookgasam about The World’s Most Dangerous Bookstore.
You see, as is apparent from one’s first step squeezing through the front door, Bill’s Yesterday Books is not the nicely organized, aesthetically pleasing publication warehouse like a Barnes & Noble or even a typical trade store you’re used to visiting.
Instead, it’s a whole damn house with no living space whatsoever. Books are literally (and pat yourself on the back, dear reader, if you caught that pun) piled to the ceilings, but not on shelves, with a foot-wide pathway rudely carved through the rubble that one must shimmy through sideways in order to travel. The place is so overflowing with reading material that the path itself is comprised of volumes. It is near impossible to see the walls. And a window? Forget about it. There isn’t enough sunlight to discourage insects from forming veritable kingdoms in there. With careful balance and a reliable pair of mountain boots, the home is navigable, but it’s a one-way trail, and friend, there ain’t no passing once inside.
Before we were granted full admittance into the treasure cove, Bill posed one important question: “Y’all’re 21, aren’t ya?” We said we were. “Yeah, I kind figured so. I sees you’s gots hair on your legs. Heh-heh.”
I’ve only ever read three books from cover to cover on first reading: The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy, Disclosure by Michael Crichton, and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
I have a very large collection of books about (and by) Richard Nixon and Watergate. (A few hundred titles, honest.)
I once waited several hours at a campus book sale because I was broke and at a certain time books went to $1/box. I really wanted the 1921 20-volume set of the complete 1001 Arabian Nights printed by the Burton Society and still have that set.
Sometimes I’m embarrassed to admit that I love the books of Edward Lee and Carlton Mellick III since most would not consider their work fit for “decent” people.
I once spent $1500 for a mint condition pornographic paperback written by Dean Koontz under a pseudonym.
I own a book bound in lizard. (Beast Child by Dean Koontz)
I have an extensive Dean Koontz collection. (In case you haven’t figured that out already.) It includes 15 unique editions of Intensity including two versions of the manuscript.
I can read a book and you’d never be able to tell it had ever been opened. I am extremely hesitant to loan any of my books to anyone and cringe at folded page corners and cracked spines.
All hard covers I purchase are immediately encased in archival-quality acid-free dust jacket covers from Bordart which I buy in 300 ft rolls.
According to my parents, my first full sentence was asking they why the bookstore we were driving by was only for adults. They answered that it had books kids wouldn’t be interested in and I accepted the answer.
In sixth grade I made a deal with my parents: I wouldn’t watch TV for a week and in exchange I’d get a paperback copy of Shogun by James Clavell. I think it took me months to read it. I still have that copy despite having log ago upgraded to a first edition hardcover.
An author has 100 pages to impress me. If I’m not convinced by the end of page 100, I’m not going to finish it.
I’m typically in the process of reading five or six books at a time.
I will typically intentionally avoid reading books that are currently in vogue. I have regretted this a few times but generally don’t mind waiting until the furor dies down.
I have thousands of books in my collection and more than 500 of them are autographed. (Living in Denver for a decade with all the authors that came to The Tattered Cover really helped.) Some of my favorite autographs include Kurt Vonnegut, Gene Simmons, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Campbell.
Stephen King’s new 1,000+ page epic comes out in just six days! (I picked free super-saver shipping so I’ll have to wait a little longer to get my copy.)
Chris Anderson’s new title Free can of course be purchased at Amazon but is also available for free online reading via Scribd. Even better the unabridged audio version is also available completely for free download.
From Amazon:
The New York Times bestselling author heralds the future of business in Free.
In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company’s survival.
The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long. Just think that in 1961, a single transistor cost $10; now Intel’s latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor–effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don’t apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage.
Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you’re trying to sell.
In Free, Chris Anderson explores this radical idea for the new global economy and demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.
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