false 1806786 8 Fresh out of college in the summer of 1961, Happy lands his first job as a graphic designer (okay, art assistant) at a small Connecticut advertising agency populated by a cast of endearing eccentrics. Life for Happy seems to be -- well, happy. But when he's assigned to design a newspaper ad recruiting participants for an experiment in the Yale Psychology Department, Happy can't resist responding to the ad himself. Little does he know that the experience will devastate him, forcing a reexamination of his past, his soul, and the nature of human cruelty -- chiefly, his own.<P><P> Written in sharp, witty prose and peppered with absorbing ruminations on graphic design, <I>The Learners</i> again shows that Chip Kidd's writing is every bit as original, stunning, and memorable as his celebrated book jackets. 2921077 19 2 2008 The Learners: A Novel total:471|5:71|4:176|3:155|2:53|1:16| 471 1646 754 131 1 3 false false Sat Mar 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 25 18:04:03 -0800 2008 Sat Mar 08 13:31:58 -0800 2008

The Learners features the same eternally naive, lovable (?), ball-less and ostensible like thirteen-year-old protagonist as The Cheese Monkeys (it's even subtitled "The Book After The Cheese Monkeys"), Happy (read: Hapless), now out of art school and working for an...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Nov 15 12:51:55 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 13:50:28 -0800 2008 Chip Kidd guy is some famous graphic artist/book jacket designer. I picked up the book from the library's "new" shelf initially because of the cool jacket, then checked it out because Augusten Burroughs about pees himself giving a back cover blurb.

The Learner...more...]]> 3 3 false false Wed Feb 27 21:30:35 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 17 19:40:51 -0700 2008 Chip Kidd's voice, you see, his snappy dialogue and his witty little characters and his charming descriptions. There's a lot of clever stuff in this book, too, including smart digressions on form vs. conten...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Feb 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 16 16:26:07 -0800 2008 Sat Mar 01 07:51:55 -0800 2008
The last third that follows is so brilliant I completely forgot any problems I had with the beginning. It r...more...]]> 2 2 false false Tue Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 17:13:08 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 17:11:13 -0700 2008
Any graphic designer worth their salt will already know who Chip Kidd is; he's the one wh...more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue May 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 25 17:53:46 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 12:42:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 15:52:25 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 15:53:28 -0700 2008
But I was disappointed by this seque...more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 05:28:05 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 08:43:21 -0700 2008 The Cheese Monkeys, where graphic designer Happy (a nickname), finds a job and then gets involved in Stanley Milgrim's notorious Obedience to Authority experiment. The story is set in 1961 and is mostly about Happy's reaction to participating in the exp...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Mar 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 15:16:20 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 15:16:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Mar 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Feb 21 09:57:29 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 18 14:36:42 -0700 2008 The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters, but still a pleasant read - lots of laughs and some sweetly sad moments too. Being a designer, I have a special weakness for any novel that can blend design theory and personal narrative, wrapped up in a beautiful jacket desig...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Apr 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 14:21:44 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 12:16:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Apr 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 08:08:25 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 15:14:01 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false true Thu Apr 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 10:18:28 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 14:59:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:55:38 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:55:38 -0800 2009 Graphic designer and novelist Chip Kidd is best known for his smart book-jacket designs for Donna Tartt, David Sedaris, and Michael Crichton, among others. He used his innovative design elements to explore the relationship between form and content in The Cheese Monkeys, and he employs the same desig...

more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 11 08:10:59 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 11 08:11:54 -0700 2009 Chip Kidd book is out and well.. I just read a magnificent paragraph.

She was typing again. Now, obviously she was a stranger to me, but I already suspected that even if I were to lie on the floor in front of her with a meat axe growing out of my head, in a pool of my own hot hemo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 16 16:19:13 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 08:32:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 09:19:11 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 27 09:44:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 23 11:03:02 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 11:10:20 -0800 2009 Chip Kidd so much, and because I liked The Cheese Monkeys so much. But if someone else wrote this, I'd probably give it 2. I'm lame.
Anyways, it's funny, as funny as TCM in parts -- I sat in bed and laughed anyways -- just not as consistently funny, and just not a...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 10:39:52 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 10:41:53 -0700 2008 Chip Kidd revolutionized the ways books are packaged. He’s a genius of typesetting and design. His first novel, the Cheese Monkeys, is about art students who are trying to get through a grueling term in 2D design, and the book itself is an ingenious design. The outside edge, for example, reveals a...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Oct 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 21 18:20:17 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 01 07:00:48 -0700 2008 1 more...]]>