It is the best of times and it is the worst of times to be a lover of art books. It is the best of times thanks to the ever increasing number of pages being inserted between covers these days. And the worst because this phenomenon is resulting in tomes that are virtually impossible to handle thanks to their size and weight. (We’ve had our laps crushed by some really beautiful volumes recently.)
Imagine our delight, then, when we came across the new retrospective of National Geographic photographs published by art-book king Taschen – National Geographic: Around the World in 125 Years. First, they’ve taken the wise step of splitting this 1,468-page extravaganza into three separate volumes classified by region. Our laps are already breathing a sigh of relief.
But the touch that absolutely captured our hearts is a simple addition they’ve made: each volume comes with a slipcase that folds into a book stand! We’re a bit hazy on the details of how this was engineered as we only have the photos to go by, but from what we can see this is a remarkable step forward for book publishing.
By all means keep the beautiful, page-packed art books coming. All we ask is that you spare a thought to how the devil we’re supposed to wrestle these things into submission.
