We're ringing in the New Year with a sale: most things in our store are 20 to 30 percent off. - - - - |
Q: When is McSweeney's 11 coming out? A: We've been done with the text portion of the book for quite some time, but we were having some difficulty getting the right material for the cover of the issue, which is a hardcover and which we wanted to cover with a leathery material. However, the colors and textures we'd chosen — from a catalog of such materials — weren't currently available. This process took an inordinately long time. Finally, we asked our friends at Oddi Printing what similar leathery materials they had at the Reykjavik plant — "on the floor," as they say. Bjossi, our project manager at Oddi, sent us a note that read as follows: Hello, What we learned at this point was a) Skivertex uses Swahili names for their colors and b) Oddi did not have enough of any particular leatherette to print the entire run of McSweeney's 11 — 20,000 copies. Which was fine, actually. So we asked them to print the covers with the following breakdown (with the color of the ink (there's an elaborate foil stamp on the cover) denoted in each case): #5349 brown, Ubonga — 8300 — gold foil This means that the print-run of Issue 11 is split four ways, albeit very unevenly. There will be 8,300 copies in brown, 9,000 copies in black, 900 copies in blue — all with gold ink — and 1,800 copies in yellow, with black ink. We are not sure what all the permutations will look like, but we've seen the blue leatherette version, and it's very nice, probably our favorite McSwys cover yet. Here's a sneak preview. This issue of McSwys will be making its way to you throughout the month of July. It contains what we consider to be one of our very best collections of new fiction, and of course includes the DVD we've been mentioning, full of extras and horrible mistakes. - - - - Q: I keep hearing about William T. Vollmann's magnum opus, Rising Up and Rising Down. I hear it's 3,000 pages or so. How will that work? One huge volume? And most importantly, is it purely a reference book, or is it something anyone might want to read? A: We feel it's the most important book we've ever been associated with, and certainly one of the most astonishing books produced by an American author in recent years. It's the culmination of 17 years' labor on the part of William Vollmann, and it's truly a herculean achievement. We're extremely happy to bring it to you, and we and Vollmann have done everything we can to make the book approachable by a general readership. The book is indeed engaging on many levels, and can be "dipped into" at really any point. Alternatively, it's a fantastic read even if you're inclined to start at the beginning and read it straight through. It'll be presented in seven volumes, varying in length from about 260 pages to 700 pages. We will post more news about the book in the coming weeks. - - - - Q: I bought You Shall Know Our Velocity in hardcover a while back. Now I want to see this new material that's in the new hardcover edition. Do I need to buy the new hardcover version — the one with the very small print-run? A: No, no, you don't. If you want to see the extra pages, you can download a pdf here. Or you can wait a few weeks for the paperback version, published by Vintage, which also includes the new material. - - - - Q: Is it true that Marcel Dzama has hidden ten original drawings in copies of his new book, The Berlin Years? And how will I know if it's original, given that your reproductions of his work are so damned accurate? A: This is true. We don't even know where the drawings are. Many months ago, we sent them to Oddi, and the workers at the plant put them in the copies — never more than one per book. If you receive an original drawing, you'll know it. For one thing, it will smell vaguely of root beer, as Dzama uses root beer to achieve his unique brown tone. This is no lie.
|
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.