I read my way through the 2012 Booker shortlist, saving Umbrella, which frankly seemed like it would require by far the most effort, until last. Actually I was pleasantly surprised, for although the style in which it's written demands a certain amount of attention (the stream-of-consciousness narrative flits from one character to another without warning, as well as jumping forwards and backwards in time) Will Self writes so fluently and brilliantly that this is, in fact, a page-turner. It's not really a novel to lose yourself in, it's too self-conscious for that. I had the sense when reading it of... Continue reading

Book design is a slow process. Last summer I designed a book for Thames & Hudson, A Year in the Life of Facehunter that is just now being published. The Facehunter is photographer Yvan Rodic, who travels the world in search of culture, style and beauty and posts the images to his two online blogs, Facehunter, which is more street-fashion, and YvanRodic.com, which is themed around his travels. I'm really proud of this book, and learned a lot doing it, so I thought I'd post a little bit more about the design. Finding the right cover is the hardest thing... Continue reading

We thought it was time What Katy Read tackled some poetry, and so we read the winner of this year's T.S. Eliot poetry prize, Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds. Reviews and scores over on the main site (but if you'd rather stay I can tell you it scored 53, with one of us loving it, reactions from the rest ranging from indifferent to mildly annoyed). I do rather love the way she reads aloud though, as if she weighs each word before she utters it. Continue reading

Something Amanda spotted currently doing the online rounds. Continue reading

Nice comparison of US and UK cover designs from 2012 here. I love this kind of thing; it's always so fascinating to find books I know in bookshops abroad and see how the covers differ. Continue reading

Quite simply the wisest and most reassuring book I've read in a long time, written by someone who, it feels, if you met her, you'd instantly want to befriend. Come to think of it I did meet her. She tried on my glasses. There are a million and one self-help books out there, but it can seem hard to convert the words on the page into meaningful life change. There's a reason Bridget Jones had a whole shelf of them. This, however, I found engaging and inspiring and offered me lots of new ideas that seemed very much like an... Continue reading

I love bookshops and I love to buy things when I'm there, but I'm also a frequent Amazon customer. Reading this weekend FT article, though, made me realise the real price we pay for those cheap books. It's a unnerving insight into the way Amazon has changed the nature of retail. By contrast, I read something else recently on Lutyens & Rubenstein, a bookshop that I've never visited as it's across town from me. They say 'We believe that the discerning reader of any age is hungry for an alternative to the homogeneity of the chains and the anonymity of... Continue reading

One thing you can say about us at What Katy Read, we do like a nice apocalypse. Reviews and scores for our latest book, John Wyndham's The Chrysalids over on the main site. If you fancy reading it we suggest you get the real book. Kindles will be no good after an apocalypse, and if any New Zealanders are reading this, you're sitting pretty, let me tell you. There's some old BBC archive footage of the author here. Continue reading

I confess I didn't actually manage to finish in time for book club this month, but the others did, and our reviews and scores are now on the main site here. We read it because the Guardian book club did & thought it was amazing, and guess what, so did we. Turns out it is a really wonderful read, beautiful, poetic and best of all for busy folk in book clubs, short. It scored 74%, so firmly up there in our top-10. I just finished it. I actually also read Southern Mail by mistake, and liked that even more than... Continue reading

Book no. 2 of 2013, given to me by my sister. Turns out instead of grumbling at my husband over things like his strange insistence on keeping the tomato ketchup in the fridge (and we have a tiny fridge in which space is at a premium, I should point out, and a large ketchup bottle), I should be 'experiencing him like a sunset'and reconnecting with my Feminine Energy. But I warmed towards this book even as I winced at the Overuse of Capital Letters for Emphasis, mainly for the occasional nuggets of brilliant advice, the fact that it made me... Continue reading

Nice Guardian article about this here. Sad to hear the Book Arts course at LCC might close. I have fond memories of the bookbinding classes I took there while studying graphics, taught by old-school pros who had spent their lives in the printing industry. Continue reading

To make a note of everything I read this year. And so, no. 1, a P.G. Wodehouse my mum left by my bed over Christmas. Something Fresh is a mildly amusing romp set at Blandings Castle, home of the forgetful Earl of Emsworth, his wastrel son Freddie and a roving cast of hangers on. This novel centres around the romance between a hack author of crime novels and a girl he meets who is also working hard to make ends meet, and a setup involving a valuable scarab beetle mistakenly appropriated by Lord Emsworth. Needless to say all ends well,... Continue reading

Reviews and scores for Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel over on the main site. We're all a little bit in love with Thomas Cromwell, even our one man, who has a man-crush. Continue reading

I could write a long boring list of excuses as to why it has taken me so long to write up our last book club on Wuthering Heights, but instead I'll just say and let's all celebrate the fact that this morning she stayed asleep long enough for me to finally get the website all up to date. So reviews and scores for Wuthering Heights available here – but if you'd rather stay and look at baby Waveney a little longer I can tell you it scored 80% and we'd recommend it to anyone. Continue reading

I don't know what I was expecting – normally New Yorker profiles are illuminating in their sheer length and exhaustiveness, and I confess I was curious to find out more about J.K. Rowling. But the fact that after reading this 10-page article I feel I know little more her inner life than I did before suggests to me that there really isn't that much to her. That's ok – not everyone can be some amazing extraordinarily charismatic fascinating individual. I guess it's just that her books have been so very successful, it's kind of disappointing that she herself seems so... Continue reading

My sister bought this for a friend, but made the mistake of leaving it at my house so it soon got sucked into my reading pool. It's a fantasy story in which two children are trained by mysterious magical mentors to be participants in a long-running duel. They eventually meet, fall in love, discover that they are supposed to be enemies, and attempt to escape their puppet-masters' designs. There is a completeness of vision about this book that is very satisfying. It's like a game of chess with vivid and inventive description that brings the magical world of the Night... Continue reading

via the book inscriptions project An interesting question, and an interesting article by Amanda Katz for NPR on the subject here. Continue reading

Marriage, sweet marriage... Actually 12 years, for me – coincidentally – but who's counting. Meanwhile for book club we got to grips with The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Euginedes. Full reviews over on the main site but if you only care about the score I can tell you we gave it 72/100. Here's Jeffrey discussing his work with The Guardian's Sarfraz Manzoor. And if you've not read it we'd also highly recommend Eugenides' earlier book Middlesex. Continue reading

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An edible cookbook, a book that glows in the dark and a book that has to be destroyed before it can be read: three of my favourites from a post on Flavorwire rounding up some unusual book designs. And here I sit designing a book made of paper whose pages can be turned in sequence or flicked through at whim. It seems so unimaginative. Continue reading

While not much liking either, I marginally prefer the US cover to the UK, so that's what I'm posting here. As for the book, I liked it so much I went straight out and bought a copy to give to someone else (being unable to share my kindle version). But that's me – find out what the rest of the book club thought on the main site here. If like me you routinely skip any preliminary material before the first chapter (for who has time for that), then you'll be as confused about the title as I was: 'M-I-crooked letter-crooked... Continue reading

We might be a bunch of nice middle-class folk with sensible jobs, but maybe inside every WhatKatyRead member is a free-thinking original spirit artist rock-star just waiting to break out. Or not. Find out what we thought of Patti Smith's memoir on the main site here. Continue reading

'If we're going to go through all the trouble of making a bookshop, then why not make the atmosphere as important as the content of the shelves.' Click through for a film from Monocle on the heavenly looking shop that is Tsutaya Books new Daikanyama branch. Is it an impossible dream that we might have a bookshop like this in London one day? Probably – I can't see anyone being able to afford the space, for one thing. The other thing that appeals is the wonderful subdued lighting. The Japanese are great at lighting. Wouldn't you rather be in an... Continue reading

Life is filled with tiny mysteries. But what did WhatKatyRead make of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Reviews and scores now up on the website, here. But if you insist I can whisper that it scored a respectable but not brilliant 58, and that our conclusion – with some disappointment as expectations had been high – was that the writing didn't live up to the quality of the illustrations. Still well worth a look though, as the illustrations themselves are brilliant, charming and life-enhancing. I might not believe I'm seeing the world through TS Spivet's eyes,... Continue reading

Sweet, no? Continue reading