Friday, December 18, 2009

Catherine Casalino: The Groucho Letters

Chappy Chanukah! We made it through yet another miraculous eight days. This awesome paperback was published by Simon and Schuster in Aug 2007. I asked Catherine how she found the illustration and this was her response:

"I drew the illustration myself— it's based on a famous photo of Groucho. I had looked at a lot of past Groucho books and they either used caricatures or black & white photos/stills from his movies. He's such an icon, that I thought creating a graphic portrait of him was appropriate— and I swapped out his cigar for a pencil. The word Groucho is his actual signature. I found it by chance! It was stamped on the case of the earlier edition from the 1960s."

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Keenan: Love in Infant Monkeys

The title of this book is printed on a small sticker affixed to the banana. It's a real sticker you can peel off. Amazing! Here's the description:

"Lions, rabbits, monkeys, pheasants—all have shared the spotlight and tabloid headlines with famous men and women. Sharon Stone’s husband’s run-in with a Komodo dragon, Thomas Edison’s filming of an elephant’s electrocution and David Hasselhoff’s dogwalker all find a home in Love in Infant Monkeys. At the rare intersections of wilderness and celebrity, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with pop icons and the culture of human self-worship." (soft skull press)