Recent Book Club Publication – From the Editor

From The Editor: The Selected Writings of Sandra Kirshenbaum
edited, with an introduction, by Russell Maret

The Book Club of California is pleased to announce the publication of From the Editor: The Selected Writings of Sandra Kirshenbaum.

Although Sandra Kirshenbaum is best known as the editor of Fine Print, her engagement with the world of book arts went well beyond the editorial. She donned the caps of writer, lecturer, friend, patron, and advocate to the book arts community. Her impact in many of these guises can be hard to pinpoint and extract, but it is clearly on display in her writing; she not only loved and understood the world of books, she ably articulated why others should love it as well. She did so in a prose that could be both serious and lighthearted in turns, suffused with the same curiosity and high standards as her editorial work.

When the inaugural issue of Fine Print appeared in 1975, the book arts community was undergoing a seismic generational shift. The methods and motivations in bookmaking were moving toward a new kind of interpretative book; the presumptions of the early private press were coming into question; specialist book arts organizations were opening around the country; and the first signs of the digital future were appearing on the horizon. Kirshenbaum embraced this transitional moment as evidence of the book’s perseverance. She authored a series of prescient essays in which she wrestled with and postulated the potential impacts of new ideas and technologies on the future of the book, without sacrificing her appreciation for traditional methods.

From the Editor gathers together Sandra Kirshenbaum’s writings for the first time. It includes all of her longer articles from Fine Print, as well as essays from other journals and catalogs, and a particularly thought provoking, previously unpublished lecture, ‘The Return of the Scholar-Printer.’ The text is illustrated with many of the original Fine Print illustrations, as well as full color images of many of the books being discussed.

From the Editor: The Selected Writings of Sandra Kirshenbaum is the 240th publication of the Book Club of California. It was designed and produced by Russell Maret. The typeface is Haarlemmer MT Pro designed by Jan van Krimpen and Frank Blokland. The display typeface, Harlem, was inspired by the calligraphy of Jan van Krimpen and designed by Russell Maret. The frontispiece portrait of Kirshenbaum was engraved by Abigail Rorer. The body text was printed by Puritan Press; the title page, frontis engraving, endsheets, and cover papers were printed letterpress by Russell Maret. The book was bound by John DeMerritt Bookbinding.

The edition is limited to 300 copies, signed and numbered by the editor. 152 pp. 7 x 10 inches. Bound in quarter bookcloth with patterned paper covers and endsheets, smyth sewn, with a pasted label on the spine.

The price is $215. Sales tax and shipping are additional.

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