Earlier this year, I received a lovely paperback called What Is Reading For?--$19.95, only 40 pages, but what lovely pages. Written and designed by Robert Bringhurst, it's a 450-copy limited edition printed on Mohawk Ticonderoga paper, with French flaps. The cover has archaic Greek text (in Dan Carr's Parmenides) and Han Chinese phrases front and back (Adobe Kaiti, Microsoft Mincho and Ryoko Nishizuka's Kazuraki); the text face is Trinité, the titling face is Rialto. Font geeks will get it; the rest can "merely" admire a piece of bookmaking art. The text is an essay about the future of reading; Bringhurst writes about scribal cultures and the visceral bond between script and reader, the erosion of the bond when printing comes to the culture and the future of reading with the advent of digital books. He says it's natural to feel anxiety as books "molt from one form or instar to another" because we know, "in our guts or our bones, that books are important. But so long as we do know they're important, they may survive. Whatever they're molting into now, this metamorphosis is quite unlikely to be the last."
A few months ago, I received a baseball memoir--always an occasion--called Johnny Antonelli, by himself with Scott Pitoniak. Antonelli was a phenom who signed with the Boston Braves in 1948, a few days after graduating from high school. After being traded to the New York Giants, he became one of the sport's best pitchers, with a 114-89 record, 22 shutouts and nine saves. This is a handsomely produced book--smooth cover, pleasant (albeit unidentified) typeface and photographs.
What these two books have in common is their publisher: RIT Press, a co-imprint of RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press, from Rochester Institute of Technology. They make some fine books. Originally focused on graphic arts (gorgeous calligraphy books), the press has expanded into other subjects,--deaf studies, business, science, poetry, even cards and posters. Check out their website at your own monetary risk. --Marilyn Dahl, reviews editor, Shelf Awareness