C. Lockhart-Gordon. To the End. London: John F. Shaw and Co., 1898[?] — Source.
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
The Art of Book Design: To the End
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
C. Lockhart-Gordon. To the End. London: John F. Shaw and Co., 1898[?] — Source.
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
John Steinbeck. East of Eden: Penguin Books, 2012.Cover Art by Kathryn McNaughton
Kathryn McNaughton is a Canadian artist from Toronto. She was commissioned by Penguin Books, UK to design a series of covers for Steinbeck’s classic novels. This one is my favourite, but if you click the link below you’ll find the rest of the series.
From: ShitIheart
The Yellow Book. Volume III. October, 1894. London: John Lane. — Source. One of the many covers for the journal executed by Aubrey Beardsley
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
I’ve had this tab open for ages because I really wanted to share this story with you, which is cool and sad atb the same time, as it shows how modern notions of society have clouded the vision on the past.
What Anita Radini noticed under the microscope was the blue—a brilliant blue that seemed so unnatural, so out of place in the 1,000-year-old dental tartar she was gently dissolving in weak acid.
It was ultramarine, she would later learn, a pigment that a millennium ago could only have come from lapis lazuli originating in a single region of Afghanistan. This blue was once worth its weight in gold. It was used, most notably, to give the Virgin Mary’s robes their striking color in centuries of artwork. And the teeth that were embedded with this blue likely belonged to a scribe or painter of medieval manuscripts.
Who was that person? A woman, first of all. According to radiocarbon dating, she lived around 997 to 1162, and she was buried at a women’s monastery in Dalheim, Germany. And so these embedded blue particles in her teeth illuminate a forgotten history of medieval manuscripts: Not just monks made them. In the medieval ages, nuns also produced the famously laborious and beautiful books. And some of these women must have been very good, if they were using pigment as precious and rare as ultramarine.
Read the whole story here.
Charles Kingsley. The Water Babies. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886 — Source.
There are a lot of small details that make this one of my favourite vintage book covers; the blue leather etched to look like water, the brightly coloured flowers that float, bubbles and birds and flowing lines all adding up to the sense of being underwater.
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
Leonard Russell, The Saturday Book no. 11, 1951. Cover by Joan Hassall – source
Because it’s Saturday, of course.
From: Pinterest.ca
The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil; from the earliest times to the present day. Paul Carus, Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1900- Source
A devilish design today done in flame red on matte black replete with a bat-winged demon (who’s looking very contemplative) and a seductive snake.
From: Pinterest.co.UK
Evie Wild. All The Birds, Singing: Penguin Random House., 2014. Cover design by Joan Wong
A change of pace for today as we look at something modern. The cover design of this book is in such stark contrast to the cheerful title that it makes me want to pick it up.
Edward J. Goodman. Too Curious. London; Guildford: Bentley & Son, 1888 — Source.
Simple. Elegant. Effective.
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
Lord Dunsany. The Book of Wonder. London: William Heinemann, 1912 — Source.
From: The Public Domain Review, The Art of Book Covers (1820 – 1914)
E. A. Bowles. My Garden in Spring. London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1914 — Source. Cover design by Katherine Cameron
I love books. Real books with real paper are a treat for the senses. I love the way they feel in my hand, the way they smell and the way they catch my eye. That last bit, the eye-catching, is what this new series is all about; the art of designing striking books that make you stop and take a closer look. My original interest in starting this series came from The Public Domain Review and I’ll be pulling from their collections and lots of other sources. Every day you’ll get a beautiful book to admire. Many will be old, but not all. There will be a lot of art nouveau because I like art nouveau, but I’ll try to change it up and keep it interesting. I’m also willing to feature any book you might want to share as long as it’s beautiful and eyecatching. Send any of your suggestions to me at affinitysubmissions@gmail.com. The address is always in the sidebar.
Our Book today is in celebration of Spring. The art nouveau design is by Katherine Cameron and together with E.A. Bowles they created a series of garden books. If you click on the link below you can also find the covers for My garden in Autumn and Winter and My garden in Summer. Together they make a beautiful set.
From: My Beautiful Book Finds
Well, one more book. I have about twenty knife and swords books in the sights for future purchases, but I am still in the middle of reading the first seven I already have purchased. The flu-like illness that has been bugging me on and off for two weeks is unfortunately not very conducive to reading, especially to reading in a foreign language.
But Marcus was so very, very kind and has sent me this beauty, which I have not seen offered anywhere here. I must say it is a lovely book on first sight and it became a cherished possession instantly.
Now I had not planned on buying a book specifically about japanese knives, because I intend leaving making japanese knives to the Japanese, but there is no denying that they have a reputation of being superb tools so it won’t hurt to know about them. Quite the opposite, I am sure there is a lot of knowledge in this book that will be beneficial to me and I am very much looking forward to reading it.
However this makes me think a little – all the knives that I have made so far and that I intend to make in the future are my own designs and represent my aesthetical preferences as well as my style of using a knife. And whenever I look at works of other knife-makers (which I do not do very often), often I see that everyone develops a distinctive style. For example Bob Loveless has been renown for drop-point small hunting knives, Walter Sorrels sells mostly very pointy and straight, tanto-style all-purpose knives, Stefan Santangelo seems to like knives which have a slight forward angle between the blade and the handle with a little kink in it etc. I have no doubt that all these knives are perfectly functional and comfortable to use. There is no single “correct” knife design.
I find it remarkable how expressive can be a piece of craft that is essentialy just a sharpened sheet of metal with a piece of wood to hold it with, even when looking at just the outline.
Incidentally you can see two things in the last picture. Firstly, my left middle finger is nearly completely healed. There is still slight swelling and an area with tickling-burning sensation when touched, but it gets constantly, albeit very slowly, better. Secondly, in case you are wondering, that is my school pencil-case, about thirty years old by now.
I got a baking book for Christmas from, my brother in law. we might start a tradition of giving each other cooking books and baking books, though he doesn’t actually like baking much. He#s somebody who follows certain cooks and Yotam Ottolenghi is definitely one of his favourites (he asked for several of his books on other occasions.)
Interestingly, the international cover is different from the English one…
Now, cooking books are like other books. They’re for you to read, but they have the added benefit of also containing recipes. What I instantly liked about it was that it had a lot of cakes and cookies and such that looked absolutely doable. Now, as you know, I’m not one above spending three days in the kitchen to make a CAKE, but most occasions are for simple cakes that you make in an hour and then enjoy.
Of course I had to try one out as soon as possible and decided to go for cakes baked in a can for New Years Eve.
Caaaaaaake, caaaaaaaaaake
These ones are with butternut squash, almonds, raisins and orange peel. I slightly upscaled the recipe because I only had medium eggs. Often recipes call for large eggs and if you only use medium eggs the cake gets dry. So I added an extra egg and a bit more of everything else. that way I ended up with three cans and was I glad.
That’s two of them cut into slices.
I thought I’d save the third so it wouldn’t become dry… After a while our host asked if there was anything left. I cut the third. Suddenly our other host said: Shit, my parents aren’t here yet and look at what we left!
Not much…
The cake was delicious in taste and very moist. We could have kept eating, obviously.
Which is why I decided to make it for my birthday breakfast at work, that’s why my kitchen currently looks like I was planning to open a stall at fun fairs…
Three throws for a buck.
