August 9, 2005
Beautiful Books
I am obsessed with the design of “Falling Cloudberries” by Tessa Kiros, perhaps the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen. You get a good image of the cover here. Wallpaper patterns are throughout the book and I just love them and I am thinking of using samples for the binding of my haiku book. Another nice book I’ve seen lately is Ticknor by Sheila Heti, to whom good book design must be old hat by now.
I am obsessed with Devil’s Lake, Lionel Shriver and Zoe Williams thinks living by yourself is selfish. It’s interesting to see the difference between Canadian and American coverage of the Devil’s Lake issue. Here, Margaret Wente lauds cars as symbols of freedom, in much the same way I did in an essay composed in Grade Ten history class, and declares that it will take way more than $1 a litre to make her give up her SUV. Good on you Margaret.
Finished George and Rue by George Elliott Clarke today. The language was astoundingly beautiful, though sometimes I felt I was wading through adjectives. My problem with it is that I knew the outcome from the outset, which naturally kept me from barrelling through in in search of a conclusion. But, I realised, that perhaps was the point of it all. Clarke writes of the Hamilton brothers that “as soon as the sun first shone on them. it’d been shining on their graves.” Their end had been as forecasted to themselves as it was to the reader, which is a pretty interesting bit to think upon. So, now reading The Ice Age which is by Margaret Drabble and so will prove to be Drabbley.
Fun stuff at McSweeneys.
Tomorrow, Pearson bound to pick up my Ma n’ Sis In Law.
