Squandering the Blue by Kate Braverman

My first introduction to Kate Braverman was in the form of a few photocopied short stories from this book, which is inexplicably still out of print, even after some of her other novels have been reissued in the past decade (though it isn't too hard to track down a cheap used copy, as I did). These stories are all set in Los Angeles--whether in Beverly Hills or seedier locales, the characters deal with addiction and abandonment (by men, by their mothers, by their children). Might be worth a revisit.

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

This is a collection of essays, some about comics in general, some about specific comic artists, from Steve Ditko to Los Bros Hernandez to Alan Moore to Chris Ware and so on. I bought a copy for my brother for Christmas last year and he pooh-poohed the gift, saying something like, "I bet I could have written this book," as he obviously already knew everything in its contents. Oh well, too bad for him. I know I learned a little bit, and it was great to read about the artists I was already familiar with as well. And it doesn't hurt that it has a great cover too.

I also love the back--the thought bubble, the different typeface for each author and series.

L'étranger by Albert Camus

This was my mother's copy of the classic existential novel, which she read for a French literature class in college. She hadn't realized she would have to read all the books in French when she signed up, and only stayed in the class because if she dropped it they would have to cancel the class for lack of students.

I've heard it's a good book to read in French for a beginner. I'm a bit too much of a beginner to try though (that is, non French speaker).

She's taken a lot of notes in the margins.

Andy Warhol: 365 Takes

This book features 365 snippets of Andy Warhol's life and work--his illustrations, silkscreens, films, obsessions, inspirations, collections, and so on. I forgot to photograph the spine but it's about 2 inches thick. When I first got it I had intended to read a page a day for a year in an attempt to cull some inspiration. Or something.

There are his skull paintings,

his obsession with tape recording every conversation he ever had,

images from his first retrospective, at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm,

an accordion-fold book of details from Warhol's Marilyn Monroe prints,

details from Warhol's "Thirteen Most Wanted Men" (as a side note, there's an interesting story about this at Luc Sante's blog),

bits of ephemera from Warhol's trip to China (note the photograph of Mao),

posters for various Warhol films, and so on.

Warhol's helium-filled silver "clouds" on the back

The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

I read most of this book in the stacks at the Pratt library, while I was supposed to be shelving. Hey, everyone did it--I was still more productive than most student employees.

As for the book, it's a satiric play by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt, in which the world’s greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Möbius, is in a madhouse, surrounded by two other scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton.

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Yet another book in Penguin's deluxe classics series. This one is designed by Art Spiegelman, and it is one of my favorite books. Period. It's a trio of short novels by Paul Auster, part hardboiled detective fiction, part metafictional postmodernism (how do you like that?), exploring themes of identity and reality. They're referred to as "existential mysteries" in the book.

I love the map with the Tower of Babel inset.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White

I was first introduced to The Elements of Style as a college freshman by my writing teacher, who referred to it as "Strunk and White*" (as in, "Refer to your Strunk and White"). At the time I had the plain old small paperback edition, which served its purpose just fine.

Then this beautiful clothbound edition came out, with illustrations by Maira Kalman, and I somehow found myself buying a fancy version of a grammar guide. I'm curious as to how this all came about, as it seems a bit of an unlikely project, or at least unexpected. I certainly would have been surprised to hear of it back when I was being instructed to refer to my Strunk and White.

From the outset you can tell that this time it's going to be a little different.

(the corresponding "and goodbye" comes at the last two pages)

I love the box tied up with string to signify "contents." The juxtaposition of imagery with text is quite poetic--they evoke a feeling that I can't quite pinpoint just now.









I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the Philip Johnson glass house (which I have still not been to--every summer I try to buy tickets only to find that every tour is already sold out), but it is certainly what I think of when I see this.

I love the semi-colon embossed into the back (to match the colon on the front).

*That's White as in E. B. White, as in the author of Charlotte's Web. Just in case you didn't know.