Newsletter February 2022

Dnieper River

It's a difficult day for news, so for now let's just say that in the past Ian Miller produced a magnificent drawing of the Dnieper River which runs from Russia right through Belarus and Ukraine. A massive river, and a beautiful image by Ian. Prints available here.

Looking further ahead, we now have two John Harris book cover paintings for sale. It was a delight for him to work on the next in the Old Man's War series by John Scalzi. John has produced some absolute favourites when working on this series, and this one is no exception.

These are the first six in the series, and we sell prints of some of them.

He's also produced the cover for Village in the Sky, by Jack McDevitt.

Again, a favourite writer, and here's a reminder of some of the earlier ones.

Going back four billion years or so, there's Bok. Due to Covid, the US publication of The Book of Bok (Bok's Giant Leap in the US) was delayed – but it's now available, along with some of Grahame's other books, at the fabulously restored Cincinnati Museum, along with the very piece of moon rock which Neil Armstrong writes about in his story.

As he said, 'Bok was roughly thrown into a box with some acquaintances he knew only slightly.' But now Grahame has retold and illustrated the whole story. As suggested in the Kirkus review, this is 'a compelling invitation to take the long view.' A helpful tactic for today.

We can now also talk about the forthcoming publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the long-awaited edition, illustrated by Jim Kay – and this time also by Neil Packer. It is the longest book in the series so Jim needed help, and the publishers have worked hard to cram it into a 'mere' 576 pages.

Neil Packer has illustrated Firenze's classroom (which for those of you who don't know, is in a forest) but as with many of the pages, he was only allowed to use the margins of the pages as he had to allow room for text. This was tricky but he's done a great job and used his imagination to provide background information as much as possible but still allowing the text to read over it.

Neil is best known for his work for the Folio Society and has illustrated some remarkable books for them. We sell prints from some of them, for instance;

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Foucault's Pendulum

Jim Kay produced a large percentage of the illustrations for the book, including a highly-detailed painting of a row of Georgian houses in Grimmauld Place, a rather run-down London street. This is just a section.

And those who know about it can see the home of Sirius Black's family within that terrace but it's invisible to most. The book will be chunky, the illustrations spectacular, and the Potter fans are in for a treat. To be published on 11^th October 2022.