I got a neat book in the mail the other day out of the blue. It’s a smartly packaged collection of drawings by an artist named Don Nace. The book is called Drawn Out. Nace’s strokes are like dark scratches on the page, and at first glance the drawings seemed full of tiresome, and possibly adolescent, angst. But after only a few pages I found myself quite mesmerized – drawn in, as it were – by the deceptive simplicity, the deep emotion and dark humor of the drawings. Thanks to a pointer from Ron, I see that Nace has a website where he posts a new drawing nearly every day. It’s worth checking out.
Fine Lines
Penguin’s Blank Slate
Penguin, well-known for classics with sophisticated packaging, has decided to cede creative control to its readers with a new slate of books that feature "naked front covers... printed on art-quality paper." Penguin announced the initiative on its blog and they have already posted some reader-designed covers in a gallery on its site. So far, the books are only available from the UK, and the titles that come with blank covers are:Meditations by Marcus AureliusCrime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoyevskyMagic Tales by Jacob GrimmThe Waves by Virginia WoolfThe Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar WildeEmma by Jane Austen
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Author interviews
Three terrific author interviews for your reading (or listening pleasure):Robert Birnbaum sits down with Jonathan Lethem.Ed's latest guest on the Bat Segundo show: T.C. BoylePowell's snags Zadie Smith for their latest author interview.
Keegan, Library, and Amber
Yesterday I mentioned John Keegan's latest book, The Iraq War. The book is meant to be an overview of the conflict, yet in the eyes of most people the Iraq War is still brewing. Yes, large scale military operations have long been over with, but, with breaking news coming from the region daily, one suspects that the history books, looking back, will not describe this conflict as being finished. As such, it is difficult to look at Keegan's book as a definitive overview of this war. This is Janet Maslin's take in today's New York Times (she also thinks that Keegan's angle is too Western and "snobbish.") My suspicion is that this book was rushed to completion and into book stores by the publisher in order to get in on the brisk sales of Iraq-related titles. Undoubtedly, a little temporal distance from the subject matter would have improved Keegan's effort.Lovers of architecture and books alike are raving about Seattle's new Central Library, a graceful steel and glass structure designed by the Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas. Here's praise from the Seattle Times, and here's the official website with pictures. One of the more interesting aspects of the new library: the stacks are laid out on continuous, unbroken shelves that spiral through the center of the building.A few months ago there was an interesting article in the New Yorker about one of the world's lost treasures, the Amber Room, "an entire chamber paneled and ornamented in amber presented to Peter the Great of Russia in 1717 by King Frederick William of Prussia as a gift to seal the friendship between their two states." The New Yorker article described the search for the room, thought to have been hidden in Germany by the Nazis during World War II, as well as the construction of a costly replica of the room that was being built in Russia. As with much that occurred behind the Iron Curtain, there was much doubt about the true fate of the Amber Room. Now, in a book entitled The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, new evidence is revealed that solves the mystery once and for all. Read an edited extract from the book.
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A Note from a Fellow Reader
Brian, one of my more well read and more ebullient friends, sent me this email emoting about one of the more underappreciated writers of the 20th century, Joseph Roth. Roth's reputation and body of work were recently addressed in a New Yorker piece by Joan Acocella. Here's Brian's reaction:took the advice of the New Yorker and started reading Joseph Roth's collection of short stories and am totally overwhelmed. read "Stationmaster Fallermayer" from the collection on your next break. amazing. i just ordered Radetzsky March from amazon (along with seamus heaney's translation of Beowulf) --j. roth is one of those writers that was meant to write as we are all meant to breathe and move and sleep -- his prose is beautiful: perfect constructions and his sentences convey much human truth -- one of those guys who writes a line and immediately we 'know' it as we have felt it a million times but have never been able to articulate it the way he does... i look forward to pillaging his oeuvre.... He makes it sound pretty great. Unfortunately I didn't get to read "Stationmaster Fallermayer" during my break at work yesterday, but I certainly intend to soon.
A Book from the Underground
I haven't mentioned any art or photography books on The Millions in a while, but the other day a book caught my eye that I thought was worth mentioning. New York Underground: The Anatomy Of A City by Julia Solis is a collection of photographs taken in the myriad of passageways and tunnels that make up New York's unnamed subterranean sister city. You can have a look at some of the pictures here. If you're still interested after looking at those, snoop around Dark Passages, where you'll find lots more photos of New York's creepy, forgotten places.
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