5 in Mind part 5: Adventures in Type

Click to launch slideshow

Links to the books on Amazon:

#1, #2, #3, #4, #5

A Humument has a website with scans of every page.

You might have suggestions for others? You could comment if you do.

Alan
Copywriter

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Comments

[S the C]

Solid. Gold.

[Rob]

Very nice.

I'll have to go back to House of Leaves. I have to say that first time around I found the narrative devices rather wearying. I know there's a good novel in there, but I suspect I wasn't in the mood for it when I first picked it up.

[FlossieT]

Goddammit, how can you leave out Tristram Shandy?? The granddaddy of typographical trickery, and a Penguin Classic to boot (or at least, my copy is.)

Jonathan Safran Foer. There's a fabulous short story of his that was basically all typography. And it was good as well.

[John Self]

Great stuff Alan - yes, Alasdair Gray is the master at this sort of thing.

I was going to mention Jonathan Safran Foer to, though to some extent the type-crowding etc in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a Penguin book, goddammit!) is similar to the elements of The Stars My Destination which you've shown.

Isn't that Bester cover horrible, by the way? And that was supposed to be a 'stylish' relaunch for SF classics. Gollancz have a lot to learn about cover design from Penguin.

[Alan]

I did consider both Tristram Shandy and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, as well as The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall - maybe I should have included a bonus few like some of my less scrupulous colleagues.

What's the Safran Foer short story? And where's it been published?

I actually quite like the Bester cover - it works a lot more nicely in person and I'm a fan of the rounded corners. And the old editions were singularly kitschy and a little embarrassing.

[Kathryn]

Awesome presentation - I love 'A Humument' so it was great to see it on your list.

[FlossieT]

The Safran Foer short story was in the Grauniad Review a couple of years ago - not sure if it has been collected or formally published elsewhere. I'll have a ferret in my scrapbook and see if I kept it...

[FlossieT]

Found it - but have completely misremembered - it doesn't use typography much at all BUT it is called
About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition...

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Books/documents/2002/12/06/aboutthetypefaces.pdf

[Carina]

Another Jonathan Safran Foer story uses symbols and is v. interesting to read. It's called "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" and can be found in a slim, Penguin-published book that features the said story, an introduction and excerpts from "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." It was also published in The New Yorker and another anthology by Dave Eggers.

A copy: http://books.google.com/books?id=VA4sda0VpsIC&pg=PA135&dq=primer+for+heart+foer&sig=aaK7hRdTzqGsmV0mJhha2Q2L9pw

[Alan]

Thank you both for digging those out - is very good of you.

I had not read the first one but had read the second - in that Dave Eggers Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology. I don't remember loving too much of that book but I had forgotten about 'The Lost Boys', which was excellent -

http://books.google.com/books?id=VA4sda0VpsIC&pg=PA135&dq=primer+for+heart+foer&sig=aaK7hRdTzqGsmV0mJhha2Q2L9pw#PPA280,M1

Who is John Verbos and why can't I read more by him? This doesn't strike me as fair.