Arty 15: May 2004
Books

“and what is the use of a book” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations”
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

It’s true a book without pictures just doesn’t have the same appeal. The best bits of a biography are the shiny picture pages and children’s books nearly always have them. I always loved the covers of low brow romantic fiction, constantly refering back to their delicately painted heroines. So I’m very happy that novels are getting in on the picture act. Both W.G Sebald’s Austelitz and Mark Hadden’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime have pictures and it makes them more accessible and almost three dimensional.

When I first started planning this Books issue of Arty I decided to ask all the contributors for a list of their top five books which I intended to compile into a chart of Arty’s top fifty books. Well of course it didn’t quite work out. Some contributors named three books, some named six and no two named books were the same. So that put paid to that.

The original idea for the Books issue came from Tanya Peixote at Bookartbookshop and she along with Kelly Wellman contributes an article about the possibilities of artists’ books. There are also interviews and loads of other irreverant book stuff and of course Arty is as usual packed with both writing and pictures

Oh and by the way here are my favourite five books;
Austelitz – W.G Sebald
Looking Awry – Slavoj Zizek
The Sea The Sea – Iris Murdoch
The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley – Peter Guralnick

Cathy Lomax

Arty 15 contributors:

Sarah Doyle
Michael Macaroon
Sex Lovemat
Melanie Rose
Arabella Lee
Delaine Le Bas
Damian Le Bas
Hans Scheirl
Tanya Peixoto
Kelly Wellan
Alex Michon
Paul Murphy
Stella Vine
Cathy Lomax

**ONLY ONE COPY LEFT**

Buy Arty 15 - £2.50 & UK Postage