Tag: Books

A Literary Crawl Through the World of Nakaya Fountain Pens

Laura20 Comments

Nakaya Decapod Shiro Tamenuri

A Tale of Three Nakayas.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the end of the summer. It was the beginning of fall. It was when I had the chance to use three Nakayas.

Nakaya Number One was a devastatingly attractive Decapod I got at DC, almost on a lark. It had only one issue: the nib. Yes, the nib was wonderful, but it was a very crisp oblique italic, so it was wonderful for someone who wasn’t me.

I sold it at San Francisco to an awesome person with artistic talent and great handwriting. It was meant for him. And I felt good about seeing it go to him. But I did love that pen. So I felt a twinge of … self-sacrifice, maybe? However, I knew that “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before.”

Then Nakayas Number Two and Three arrived, bringing us to …

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Hooked on a Book By Its Cover

Laura1 Comment

mechanical.indd

Michael Cunningham wrote The Hours, which is a book I very much enjoyed.  But that’s not the only reason I want to get my hands on his newest book, A Wild Swan. I’m going to read A Wild Swan at least partly because of its illustrations, including that captivating cover by Yuko Shimizu.

I love it when publishers take the extra step to make a physical book into a beautiful object.

Shimizu is a well-known illustrator, and she’s started posting a look at the design process for A Wild Swan on her website, here.  Seeing how she drew and inked the cover illustration is fascinating.

Information about, and excerpts from, A Wild Swan can be found on Cunningham’s website here.   The US publisher’s website is here, which is where I got the cover art used above.