NY's BookExpo (And Books To Buy In 2012)

Last week, I took a break from photographing New York for a new book and instead went and looked at other people's books. Lots and lots of them. I went along to the great, gargantuan, carnivalesque event known as BookExpo America (BEA), the publishing industry's big trade show.There were 1200 exhibitors in the cavernous space, most of them publishers, and more famous authors than you could shake

Truly Beautiful Book Covers...

Sandy Cull is one of my favourite book designers. I first noticed this Melbourne-based freelancer when she designed Carla Coulson's gorgeous book Italian Joy, which was, literally and aesthetically, a book of sheer joy. Since then, I've started noticing that some of my favourite book covers are Sandy Cull ones. I thought I'd share a few of them with you here, along with some other beautiful

Best Illustrated Book in Australia Nominees

I'm often told by my lovely publishers that I'm not as enthusiastic about self-publicity as I should be. This is because I've always thought that authors should not have to speak for books. If books are beautiful enough, they should speak for themselves. Authors are really the behind-the-scenes people; the wizards pulling the curtains for the Land of Oz that is literature.In saying that, it's

Why We're Suddenly Lusting After Sex Novels

Remember the novel The Bride Stripped Bare? It was Nikki Gemmell' literary tour de force, originally published under the nom de plume 'Anonymous' because its chapters were too scandalous for the author to admit to.Bride was a huge bestseller. Huge. Women read it under their duvet covers. Men read it on commuter trains, where they hid it behind a big hard Hemingway hardback. Even grandmothers were

Book Covers: The Harland Miller Way

Reading through the New York Times' Style magazine this morning (the Spring Design Issue is now online at tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com), I stopped in my reading tracks at the London home of designer Harriet Anstruther and her photographer husband Henry Bourne. It was a curious and intriguing mix of interior decoration – minimalism meets Cecil Beaton with a lick of hot pink – but what was really