Sketches from an incredible imagination

It's no secret that I think Shaun Tan is one of the finest illustrators alive today. Just this week I finally received my copy of his latest release- The Bird King and Other Sketches. It full of gorgeous urban fantasy sketches. It's not yet available for purchase online. Here's an idea- support your local independent bookstore and order it in!

Now I'm counting down the weeks until the end of November- that's when my copy of the AWESOMELY DELUXE BOX OF THE ARRIVAL GOODNESS arrives. It comes with a limited edition print and a 'making of' sketchbook. Check out the details here. Probably a good one to pre-order. Again, support your local independent!

NEEEEEEIL! (and also some links)

Just over a week ago I attended 'Graphic', a convention run by the Sydney Opera House. Neil Gaiman was present.

For those of you who weren't lucky enough to attend, here's a video of the reading Neil did on the Saturday night. His reading voice is just divine, but don't take my word for it. Check out the video.

I attended a panel discussion with Neil, Shaun Tan and Eddie Campbell the following day, and got to ask Neil a question I've been pondering a while. It was a wonderful weekend. =D

Now I'm back to study, and have found myself quite motivated to write by this rather old TIME interview of Neil and Joss Whedon (by none other than Lev Grossman).

In some unrelated thoughts, I've been thinking about how having an ereader changes my reading experience. Just this morning, a friend mentioned that he'd found an underlined sentence in a book I've loaned him. I've always been very aware of books as physical objects. I don't just read them, I use them. I love the portability of ebooks, but I do occasionally miss the ability to mark a page with a ticket stub or write my thoughts in the margins. And voila, I logged onto one of my favourite blogs today and found this link, in which Sam Jordison discusses books-as-archives.

Eric

If I haven’t convinced you to read Shaun Tan yet, try dipping your toes in the water with this cute new edition of Eric, one of the stories published in Tales From Outer Suburbia. It’s cheap and it’s beautiful.

Usually, I'd link you to fishpond, but this time it's actually cheaper at Angus & Robertson.

The one about cover art

I was linked by a fellow blogger to this video of the design process for the cover of a Victorian/Steampunk novel. The cover is quite striking, and so is the creativity that goes into it!

It got me thinking about recent cover art. I am a sucker for a good cover. I have been known to buy books simply because the art was beautiful. Here's some covers that have caught my eye in the last year or so.

Of course, there are things I can't show with 2D pictures. You can't see that the cover of Dreaming of Dior is textured, and you can't see that Enchanted Hunters (besides wearing an incredibly detailed dust jacket) looks good naked.

View on fishpond: Fire, Friendship, Family, Love and Laughter (M.I.L.K), Dreaming of Dior, The Lady and the Chocolate, The Arrival, Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood

Highlights '09

I'm subscribed to quite a few book blogs and book news feeds. At this time of year, a lot of 'best of ' and 'highlights' lists start coming through, pointing readers to the best books of the year. But the problem with book news is that it's all about new realeases. I started reading books towards the end of the 20th Century- I have the whole history of print to catch up on!

So these are (some of) the highlights of my '09 reading:

January - four weeks off in Toowoomba and Brisbane
   -The History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell (1946)
     A fascinating look at a fascinating topic
  -The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett (2001)
     A magically intelligent cat and clan of rats figure there's always money to be made in faking rat plagues.

March-April - Semester 1
   -Beginning Logic, E. J. Lemmon (1965)
     An excellent guide to formal logic. I read it for uni, and it rocked my socks!

March 31- I meet Shaun Tan and a friend leaves the country
   -The Arrival, Shaun Tan (2006)
     A gorgeous graphic novel about the strangeness and beauty of immigration. I cried.

June - cruising on the Nile in Egypt
   -I was reading, but I don't quite remember what. The view was distracting me. =P

June/July - London & Oxford, England; and Wicklow, Ireland
   -The Inkworld trilogy, Cornelia Funke (2003, 2005, 2007)
     Because you have to read fantasy in Oxford.

July - a very long flight home
   -The Ghost, Robert Harris (2007)
     A surprisingly engaging modern thriller from a historical novelist.

August-October - Semester 2
   -The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (2008)
     Brilliant. =)
   -The Magicians, Lev Grossman (2009)
     Equally brilliant. =)

mid-September - an awful sickness strikes
   -Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (1811)
     Thus completing my aim to read all of Austen's novels.

November-December - mixing up my reading habits
   -Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman (1988/1989)
     The first installment of the classic Sandman comics. An excellent read.
   -Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (1990)
     Read it.

(As always, I've posted links to authors' sites where possible. It's not my fault if their sites aren't helpful. Where these weren't available, I've posted links to the best information I can find about the book. Sometimes this means Amazon.)

More on Shaun Tan

I'm still loving Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia.


One of the stories in the collection, 'Eric' is available for viewing here. It's not the same experience as seeing it on the page, though. I post it in the hope that you, too, will go on to experience the wonder of the hard copy!


An interview of Shaun Tan, a great introduction to this excellent artist, can be found here.


I have heard Tan give a lecture before, and loved hearing his insights on the creative process and the nature of fiction. "All fiction is false," he reminds us, "what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth."

Tales From Outer Suburbia

I have finally got round to buying Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia, and it is a gorgeous book! As always, Shaun Tan's artwork is incredible! The book is a collection of short stories, all written and illustrated by Tan.

I have been a fan of Tan for some years. His illustrations make brilliant use of fantastical elements, showing the strangeness and absurdity of objects and places that we have come to think of as ordinary. In this book, Tan proves that he's a great writer too.

My favourite story so far is 'Distant Rain', which begins: "Have you ever wondered what happens to all the poems people write? The poems they never let anyone else read?"