Carved in Stone

For six years, William Wylie photographed the changing landscape of the Carrara marble quarry. His images capture the intense physical scale of the site, the dramatic setting, and the character of the stone cutters - caravatori - whose families have worked the quarries for generations.

Wylie has worked extensively on the subject of place - from the American West to Europe. His photographs have been widely exhibited, and may be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Museum and others.



Bill Wylie was on press recently at Mondadori for his latest project, CARRARA, which celebrates the legendary Cava di Gioia quarry in Carrara, the source of the luminous white marble used by Michelangelo, Bernini, and Henry Moore. It is a beautifully printed project in duotone and four-color. I just received my advance copy and I confess, it definitely took my mind off the daily drone of economic disasters.


Which stone supports the bridge, Kublai Khan asks? The bridge is not supported by one stone or another, Marco answers, but by the line of the arch that they form. Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: Why to you speak to me of stones? It is only the arch that matters. Polo answers: Because without the stones there is no arch. (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities).

These questions from Kublai Khan are all quite interesting. But I wonder if Marco Polo could also tell me why these Carrara stone cutters are so darn stylish and good-looking?

Sartorialist, perhaps you would know ....

How Bad is It?

In one way last week was great. It started off with two days in DC, including a lovely evening on Monday having drinks by a roaring fire at The Tabard Inn with Rachel from National Geographic. And all week long I spent time with clients whose company I enjoy very much, and generally speaking, everyone was in the mood to talk. The bad part of course was that most of the discussions were pretty grim.

At The National Gallery in Washington, it was a nice surprise to hear that everything seems pretty much status quo. The show Robert Frank's The Americans has been a big success and is highly recommended. My friends at Meridian International also seemed to be doing OK, as far as I could tell still basking in the glow of an earlier exhibition for which we produced the catalogue, The Jazz Ambassadors.

But by Tuesday the weather and the news started to turn bad. I woke up to DC's first snowstorm of the year, had my breakfast, and trundled off to National Geographic with my suitcase and bag full of books skidding behind me in the snow. Now, I have always thought it would be impossible for anything to put a serious dent into the perennial optimism of this group of people. But the grim economic news seemed to be rubbing off on everyone. And worse! Book projects I was counting on now seem to be going to China! I have to say I felt a little desperate as I tried my best to badger upcoming projects out of Phil, Chris, and anyone else who would lend a sympathetic ear.

It was a very snowy train ride to New York, and the next day I gave up the suit and heels, and tromped around the city in my heavy boots, ski sweater, and parka. Lunch with Eric, editor-in-chief at Harry N. Abrams; Eric talked about the bad news in the industry -- including the fact that the publisher of PW has just been let go, which I could not believe. He seemed relatively cool as he spoke about all his concerns -- but maybe that is also because Abrams has just launched the big hit series Diary of a Whimpy Kid, which has allowed everyone a momentary breather. We discussed Art Basel Miami, which Eric attended too. It sounds as if he had a much more intellectually and culturally high-brow experience than I did, and once again I regretted that I am not just a little bit smarter and more well informed when speaking with Eric. Aside from books, we chat about blogging, podcasts, and Facebook -- all of which interest us both. Later in the afternoon, I marched through two feet of slush down to Abbeville Press. Susan, Louise, and David had great patience with me as I ran through my schpeel - and in fact they may be interested in one of the book projects I was trying to sell rights for as well as in Mondadori's new stock image service PhotoserviceElecta. Susan kindly mentioned she had read my blog -- and later I noticed that Abbeville has a very cool blog of their own, The Abbeville Manual of Style.



By Thursday I had had enough of the cold. But unfortunately, there was still more cold to come. However, I felt slightly better knowing it was also cold at home in Florida. In fact, it was so cold that one of our "neighbors" decided to climb down the palm tree, where he and his relatives usually hang out, and sun himself by the pool. (Photo courtesy of my husband's iPhone).


At Harper Collins, Marta and Liz were both pleased about the success of Kat Von D's High Voltage Tattoo, which had just made the New York Times bestseller list. On the other hand, Marta said she was not sure anyone was even going into bookstores these days. It is clear that many of the sorts of projects I have tried to pitch to Collins in the past are not going to fly at the moment. Subsequent meetings with Simon and Schuster and Stewart, Tabori and Chang also re-inforced this idea of overall uncertainty: that is, there is a feeling that no one really seems to be buying many books right now, and it is not certain IF and WHEN people are going to get back to buying books in the future, and what sort of books they will be interested in.

On my last day I passed by the '21' Club on my way to another meeting. When I got my first job in publishing 25 years ago, my grandparents took me here for a celebratory lunch. My grandfather ate here all the time with clients, and he knew the owners, who had left Europe during the War, as he and my grandmother had. I got a special tour of the hidden wine cellar that allowed patrons to stay lubricated during Prohibition. And I think there may have been some famous people -- possibly even from publishing -- eating there that day. But I don't remember. I was not sure if this restaurant was still around, and I am glad to see that it is...

Favorites - (fourth post) from Spain!

My good friend Maria Eugenia who represents Mondadori in Spain reminded me that she also has some lovely titles to boast about this year.

Medievo (The Middle Ages) and Renacimiento (The Rennaissance) are two of her favorites. Both of these big, sumptuous artbooks are published by Random House Mondadori through their imprint Electa Espana.

I think that about wraps up my informal, international survey of big, beautiful books for 2008. The question is now, what will we be working on in 2009? Let's hope we have some equally exciting projects to look forward to!

Favorites (third post) - Big and Small

It's 7:30 am and I am about to board a JetBlue flight to Washington for meetings with several publishers and museums. I'll spend the balance of the week in New York, pounding the pavement with my rolly bag of books.

Before I head off, I wanted to post this last group of books, which I think nicely rounds out the range of work we accomplished in 2008: from the enormous Visual Atlas from National Geographic, to a special edition monograph of the work of Robert Vickrey from Hudson Hills Press; a survey of Post-Modern Art from Collins Design to the small and handy paperback Travel Guide to Beijing from National Geographic.


But now it is on to find more work! Wish me luck ....

Some More Favorites (second post) - From Across the Pond

I have to admit, I am slightly gleeful whenever I hear how cold it is in New York - because here in Florida 'cold' is waking up to 60 degrees with a daytime temperature of 75. I shiver anyway, just remembering how cold New York City in winter can be! Here in our front yard I get to enjoy the company of these guys - these green parrots fill the air from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale with their boisterous chatter. I love it that these Urban Birds are flying around and living here in among the houses and skyscrapers. Making as much noise as everybody else.

As I mentioned in my last post, I had asked the Mondadori plant in Verona to let me know what some of their favorite projects had been for 2008. Last week's post was about Museum Books. Today I want to highlight some beautiful projects from France and the UK.

From the UK, these vastly different titles were noteworthy: with selections made by Christian Lacroix from the Musee des Artes Decoratifs, Christian Lacroix on Fashion is a "riot of glorious color" so says the Times of London. It is a gorgeous book, published by Thames and Hudson, and printed on one of our more sumptuous paper stocks. This is definitely one for the coffee table to show off my good taste. And speaking, above, of my green feathered neighbors, the second favorite from the UK this year is Rainforest: Light and Spirit. This title is chock full of wonderful illustrations of the flora and fauna of the tropics as illustrated by artist Harry Holcroft. With a foreward by The Prince of Wales. Published by The Antique Collector's Club.


These three titles come from ... Yes: France. I adore the photographer Yves Arthus-Bertrand, whose new book shown here is France From The Air published by Editions de la Martiniere. His previously published, phenomenal, oversized book of photos from the Salon D'Agricole is one of my favorites and I wish he would pack up his camera and come to the US of A, and create a series of photos capturing the American farmer and his animals with a similar compassion and artistry. Maybe with the new administration, the idea of a visit to the States will seem less onerous to the French sensibility ... Also from Editions de la Martiniere, a catalogue of the artwork of the Omo People and Design and a book by Nat Geo France, enormous as usual, on Trees and Forests of The World.

Some Favorites (first of three posts) - Great Museum Books

I asked my colleagues in Verona what the staff thought were some of the most beautifully printed book projects for 2008. Some of their favorites are my favorites too, and I've covered a number of these projects in earlier blog posts this past Fall; here now are several more important projects that have not been covered. All of these titles are new, most released right before Christmas.

It's a stunning group of books - or perhaps I should say "weighty" since the boxes of books I received from Verona probably totaled over 50 lbs.

(And were delivered as one box of nearly 50 lbs and another of - 2 lbs! Not very convenient for lifting)

I've grouped these into several batches, the first of which is Museum Books.

This year brought a number of important titles from several of the top institutions in the United States. Featured in the foreground is The Color of Light: Watercolors by Winslow Homer from The Art Institute of Chicago. From left to right, back row, are shown: Art and Love in Renaissance Italy from The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Masterpieces: Great Paintings of the World in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and another title from the MFA El Greco to Velazquez

NOTE: And speaking of museums, for some interesting information on museums today, check out the NPR series Museums in the 21st Century.

I love having great samples like these to show potential customers, and I'll be in Washington and New York later this month for just that purpose. If only these books were not so heavy ... But the bigger issue on my mind when traveling in January is the weather: 8 degrees (F) this morning in New York! Here in South Florida it is a balmy 70 degrees.




This morning when I took the dog for a walk, the moon was out. A nice way to start a new week.

The New Year is like a Book

So says my friend and fellow yoga student David Hart. David said, "I got this quote from one of my teachers, and the 'book' reference made me think of you."

It goes something like this:

"The New Year is like a book with all the pages unwritten and blank for you to enter into it anything that you want to write. It is yours to do as you wish. You may write in letters of gold if you wish, and make it a thing of beauty."


Happy New Year. Let 2009 be a book written in letters of gold.