mulberry road

The latest episode of PBS’s excellent Off Book series explores the art of film and TV title design. Previous episodes have explored typography, product design, art in the age of the internet, book art and papercraft, generative art, and the explosion of animated GIFs.

Also see this brief animated history of the title sequence and 25 iconic title sequences by the great Saul Bass in 100 seconds.

17:32 23rd Apr 2012

Tags: writing publishing

Giramondo launch, Anguli Ma: A Gothic Tale by Chi Vu

Anguli Ma is the central figure in a traditional Buddhist folktale, a deranged killer who wears his victims’ fingers in a garland around his neck. Chi Vu presents him as a menacing abattoir worker who carries bloody chunks of meat home to his lodgings in plastic bags, in this suburban Gothic tale set in 1980s Melbourne, when the flight of Vietnamese refugees to Australia was at its height.

The gathering fear, the prevailing darkness, the strange contours of the house which has been divided and sub-divided to accommodate its female occupants, the macabre humour and surreal effects, mark Chi Vu’s novella out as a unique contribution to contemporary Australian storytelling, and our understanding of its communities.

Giramondo Publishing

warmly invites you

to the launch of the new title

in its series of Giramondo Shorts

the novella by

Chi Vu

Anguli Ma: A Gothic Tale

to be launched by Peter Mares

Fellow, Cities Program, Grattan Institute

on Tuesday 24 April

5.30 for 6.00 pm

Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Room
Sidney Myer Asia Centre

University of Melbourne

Swanston Street, Parkville

14:04 22nd Apr 2012

Tags: publishing

Amazon at the London Book Fair | Melville House Books

Some very frank criticism of Amazon is being circulated at the LBF, as reported by Dennis Johnson from independent publisher Melville House:

Today’s hot story, in any event, was about the massive number of people from Amazon stationed not at the company’s booth but quietly working the floor in a giant disinformation and recruitment effort — or, as some saw it, an intimidation campaign. One of Amazon’s main efforts here seems to be to break up the alliance of little indies known as the Faber Factory, an ebook production and distribution service run by one of the world’s truly great indie publishers, Faber & Faber. Amazon has apparently targeted the membership aggressively in an effort to lure them away to Amazon’s own, similar services. One little publisher told us of being asked to take a meeting with the company, and having a team of five Amazonians show up to ‘splain it to him.

Meanwhile other stories are circulating of Amazon blanketing the rights hall — scene of the most intense, one-on-one rights sales meetings — with an enormous amount of personnel to have meetings directly with publishers’ rights agents, in a campaign to get them to sell rights directly to Amazon, skipping other publishers.

Read more

10:55 18th Jan 2012

Notes: 41

Reblogged from nyrbclassics

Tags: publishing

Walkabout is republished at NYRB Classics

nyrbclassics:

We are proud to release today Walkabout by James Vance Marshall (it’s actually a complicated authorship, the introduction below has more details), which was famously adapted into a film by Nicolas Roeg, starring David Gulpilil in his first role.

17:51 16th Dec 2011

Notes: 5

Tags: printing publishing history

image: Download

Well, I am sick today, officially, but that doesn’t stop me browsing the books on my shelves, where I found reference (thanks, SLV!) to a Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius. I have seen his work fleetingly in the Mirror Of The World exhibition there, but took little note of his credentials, and knew nothing of his history until this afternoon.

A quick bio here at Notre Dame university, accompanied by this beautiful illustrated opening to the 1502 edition of Dante’s Inferno, is all I’m up to right now. (Note the use of italics, something he pioneered, and his desire to create a portable edition of Dante).

Later, maybe, links to whatever I can dig up on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphii, held at the State Library of Victoria and a landmark in illustrated books:

In 1499, Manutius printed what is considered one of the finest illustrated books ever published…The work is renowned for the sheer beauty of its typographical design and layout, and the way that it integrates the Roman type designed by Griffo with the book’s 174 woodcuts…

(Des Cowley and Clare Williamson, The World Of The Book. Miegunyah Press and State Library of Victoria, 2007, p.24)

I found later on, some images at the State Library’s Mirror Of The World website, though this collection on Flickr is also quite remarkable.

Since I was a child I’ve dreamt of a (moveable) house containing all the people I love and admire.

—

Tempeh matters: the launch of Janet De Neefe’s Bali: The Food of My Island Home

Angela has nailed it, as usual. I really, really like that dream of hers.

13:32 7th Dec 2011

Notes: 4

Reblogged from nyrbclassics

Tags: publishing

A Different Stripe: Happy Birthday Sylvia Townsend Warner

nyrbclassics:

Today in 1893 Sylvia Townsend Warner was born. We are proud to put back into print three of Townsend Warner’s novels: Lolly Willowes, Summer Will Show, and this past August, Mr. Fortune (an edition that combines both the novel Mr. Fortune’s Maggot and the follow-up novella The…