Book Worship™

“A theological essay on festivity and fantasy.” Whoa.

Though it’s clearly of its time, it’s still a tight design, and the total package is quite well done. Jacket design by Gretchen Rosengren.

Below: This is not some bit of RGB trickery: the end pages are crazy dayglow—hurts the eyes.

The illustration style is classic 60s (signed “Light”?), but what really caught my eye was the color palette.

Something a little different.

This book nicely captures what the 70s looked like to me. The glossy, casewrapped cover picks up the layout of the opening spreads for each chapter.

Yes, this is the same Xaviera that brought you Xaviera’s Supersex.

I’d trust her advice on the subject. I mean, her name is Xaviera.

This hot little number came in 1978.

I don’t know if this originally had a jacket. If so, I can only assume was it was amazing, based on the amazing end-pages and illustrations. And the type on the casewrap and inside is nice and funky, too.

Illustrations by Reynold Ruffins.

I woulda guessed ’83, but this is ahead of it’s time. And there’s more info on the cover art than damn near every other book on here combined:

“The cover of this book is one of ten views of a kinetic painting, ‘Pyramid’, by Oliver Bevan. The painting is made of transparent materials which only assume colours when illuminated by polarized light. When the plane of polarization is rotated slowly (which happens mechanically in a box designed to display the painting) the colours pass through a recurring cycle of change. Ten points of that cycle have been recorded to provide covers for the third set of ten volumes.”

That means I gotta find 9 more books…

Something a little different. German version of 1975’s “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery–Solved.”

Umschlagbild (cover image) by Ulf Herholz. Umschlagtypographie (cover typography) by Manfred Waller. 1980.

Forgive the abrupt change in direction. Wanted to make sure the type wasn’t upside-down.

Not sure what year this was, but it was definitely post-1957 (when Univers was released). Designed by the Fleetway Creative Group. Photography by the Fleetway Studio. Recipe testing and preparation in the Fleetway Kitchen. Published by Danish Agricultural Producers Information Service on behalf of Danish Bacon Factories Export Association. Awesome.

An unexpectedly beautiful hardcover called “Insects.” It’s actually the “Yearbook of Agriculture” for 1952. They still do nice books like this?

From guest contributor, Sam Grawe comes this rare gem put together by the Reynolds Company. Crazy slipcase and stamped cloth casewraps. So good.

According to the last page: “Design by the Styling and Design Department. Reynolds Metal Company.”