My Self-indulgent Birthday List of Magnificent Things #3

‘Jonathan Safran Foer, deftly deploys sculptural means to craft a truly compelling story. In our world of screens, he welds narrative, materiality, and our reading experience into a book that remembers that it actually has a body.’ – Olafur Eliasson

Image courtesy of Visual Editions

Image courtesy of Visual Editions

I love Jonathan Safran Foer. To be accurate in my assertion, I should rather say that I love his words: The words he pulls together into sentences that strike my heart with their sincerity. (There are too many to reproduce here without infringing Foer’s copyright so you can read some here or here, and then, of course, you can buy his books.)

Now, it isn’t Foer’s words that astound me. Now, it’s the way he’s used someone else’s words to construct his own story. Foer has taken his favourite book The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, and literally carved it into a new book – Tree of Codes.

The strap line of Visual Editions, the publisher of Tree of Codes, is ‘Great looking stories’. And when Vanity Fair asked Foer what inspired the design for Tree of Codes, he responded with: ‘What if you pushed it to the extreme, and created something not old-fashioned or nostalgic but just beautiful? It helps you remember that life can surprise you.’ The result of this collaboration is an artefact that reminds us of the delight we can obtain from the physicality of books.

I have yet to hold a copy of the book, but it is quite evident from online pictures and videos that Visual Editions had their work cut out for them:

I don’t think I need to rattle off reasons for including it in my birthday list. In short, I think Tree of Codes looks magnificent and if it made it into my gift pile (I can only hope for a pile), I would be overjoyed.

My Self-indulgent Birthday List of Magnificent Things #2

I desperately want a copy of an awesome book entitled An Awesome Book. The book is by Dallas Clayton and you can read it here.

 

If I was the proud owner of this extraordinary book, I would find a spot for it on my favourite bookshelf (not the other bookshelves with the all-right-but-not-awesome books). I’d probably put it next to Richard Bach’s There’s No Such Place as Far Away or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, and it would be treasured.

What makes this book absolutely awesome (other than its dazzling design and wondrous words)? The author’s Awesome World Foundation donates one book for every copy of An Awesome Book sold. The books go to shelters, schools, libraries and hospitals all over the world, in an effort to encourage literacy. In addition, Awesome World supports local business and wants you to buy the book from a store close to home. You can find a local retailer here.

And if you want to see what else this bright and brilliant writer gets up to, you can have a peek at his site or follow him on Twitter.

A Chair to Cheer for

We recently brought this beautiful Morris chair home. 

 

I did a bit of Internet research on my new piece of furniture, and discovered that not only was it originally designed way back in the late 1800s, BUT some famous people have also sung about it. And, as we all know, a chair that makes it into a ditty is a chair to be cherished. In her cover of Irving Berlin’s ‘You'd Be Surprised’, Marilyn Monroe sings: ‘At a party/Or at a ball/I've got to admit/He's nothing at all/But in a Morris chair/You'd be surprised.’ Barbara Streisand’s version of ‘My Honey’s Lovin’ Arms’ goes: ‘A cozy Morris chair/What kind of chair is a Morris chair?’

So there you go. What I love most about it is not its cultural footing, though. I love:

1.                   that it is so very, very comfortable;

2.                  that its arms are wide enough to rest a cup of tea;

3.                  that I can read a book in style.

Furniture win.

My Self-indulgent Birthday List of Magnificent Things #1

Today, it is five weeks to my birthday. Yesterday I was asked for my birthday list. Inevitably, my actual list will probably contain a lot of practical items (a set of decent pots – my R300 set is going to the, ahem, pot – and perhaps some winter clothing). But, as a medium of self-expression and self-indulgence, this blog seems the ideal place for a little extravagance. For the next few weeks, I will be posting gifts that I would buy myself if I were my own over-achieving, gift-buying friend.

1. The A-1 Scrabble designer edition by Andrew Clifford Capener.

This set is not actually available (yet), but the idea is for it to be available in the font of your choice or with an assorted font pack. I am a terribly indecisive, non-committal person when it comes to consumer goods (and Saturday night plans), so I would prefer the assorted pack.

Isn’t it just beautiful?

 

[via Flavorwire]

A Crossword

I'm getting married on the 22nd of September this year, and our save the date went out today. Our guests will get the answers next week. I'm not sure if the thrill of sending this out was because it is a crossword (!!!) or if it's because sending it made my marriage-to-be even more real. Anyway, I'm pretty delighted.

Clues by Kelly Cowan. Design by Ryan Norwood-Young.