Monday, November 2, 2009

The Beauty of Black Sparrow Books

At The Rumpus, Michael Berger writes, 'Black Sparrow Press, a “boutique” press, might have produced some of the most distinctive-looking paperback titles ever. The off-white, mottled, autumnal covers of the book covers are always eye-catching but even more fetching are the distinctive front covers that are always embossed with some futuristic painting or drawing.

It helped too that they almost always published maverick authors of an extraordinary high caliber. Most people know Black Sparrow through Bukowski who was the original Black Sparrow author.

Now that Black Sparrow is being distributed through David R. Godine, itself an amazing publishing house, the original Sparrow paperbacks are becoming harder to come by. I was tipped off to this fact by a discerning customer at my store who bought two Paul Bowles’ novels as well as a Robert Creeley for what I thought was a pretty generous price!

Since then I’ve put a copy of Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles on my hold shelf along with A Brief History of Camouflage by Thaisa Frank.'

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