Tuesday Flickr Set: Literary awareness from KentLyons.
This week's Flickr set isn't about collecting eye candy as much as it is about finding inspiration. We're book-nutz over here at Bespoke and while we don't spend nearly enough time writing about reading, we do spend a fair amount of that time thinking about it, talking about it, and most often, bitching about the fact that there's never enough time to read everything on our respective lists. Collectively, we do count our lucky stars for the independent booksellers — from the colossal Powell's to the tiny Armchair Books, Annie Bloom's or Bearly Read Books — that seem to thrive in our little city. And the library system is quite good, as well. You could say it's part of our humble identity, but this isn't about us.
KentLyons, the young graphic design concern in London, has posted this set to display the various applications of Get London Reading, a program encouraging the city's residents "to make more time for books in their busy days." An admirable call to action given this period in history which seems to better promote Web surfing or channel changing over page-turning. This year's campaign, sponsored by Booktrust (having already run its short course; 24 March to 16 April, 2008), featured some deliciously erudite guerilla tactics. In addition to the artfully-crafted stencil project, Get London Reading also offers The Rough Guide to London by the Book, a companion directory as illustrated through the writers (and their writing) with maps to contextualize four hundred historical volumes, set in, or about, The Big Smoke.
And with that, I have only one simple question: why are we not employing these forms of literary awareness in every single one of our American cities? The horror, the horror.