Something Old and Something New

We like books in our house. We probably like them too much (if you can ever do that?) We have lots of new books, and lots and lots of old books.

A favourite new book of mine, that I picked up last year, is this one. A book about books. Well, typesetting books anyway. 'Book Typography, a designer's manual' was fisrt publish in 2005, and is a must for anyone who is interested in how to design a good book.

As you'd expect it is beautifully laid out and a pleasure to read ... even if it's not everyone's cup of tea. As someone who has quite a fondness for books, type, and such like, this tome has been a great introduction to the dark secrets of typesetting.

A great many of our old books are children's books. I'll show you a fine example after the break ...


'Modern Tales and Fables' was first published in 1967, and this edition is from 1969. All the illustrations are by Vaclav Sivko, and the stories are by several Czechoslovakian authors. The stories cover all manner of subjects, and are very different from the usual tales we grew up with, which makes a nice change.


One of the endpapers.


From 'A Strange Top Hat and an Even Stranger Zoo'


Look, and you get an antique bookmark for free!