Chip Kidd's Blog, page 9

According to NPR BOOKS, WIDESPREAD PANIC (Knopf) Might Be The Most “Ellroy Book” That JAMES ELLROY Has Ever Written!

 

Gabino Iglesias, an Author & Book Reviewer over at the NPR BOOK REVIEWS Page, has written an awesome book review for James Ellroy’s latest book, WIDESPREAD PANIC: A NOVEL (Knopf).  This book just came out & is in stores now, so it’s perfect timing for this, ha ha! Thanks Mr. Iglesias & Congrats to James Ellroy!

To Read The Book Review Just CLICK HERE!

 

 

 

 

 

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Book Review – Geniuses at War : Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age

 

Here’s some exciting news for Fans of the Author, David A. Price. His latest book, “Geniuses at War : Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age (Knopf)”, has been given a wonderful Book Review over at PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ! Congrats David!!

 If you’re interesting in World War II British Military History & the early days of Digital Computers then please be sure to give this review a quick read!

Here’s a LINK to go check it out. 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON POST LIVE: Author Lawrence Wright on his New Book ‘THE PLAGUE YEAR: AMERICA IN THE TIME OF COVID’

 

Lawrence Wright is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigative reporter who was one of the first to warn of global pandemics. In his latest book, “The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID (Knopf, Book Cover Design by Chip Kidd),” Wright shares what he’s learned from studying the origins, the politics and the ongoing threats of the pandemic and what that means for Americans and the world.

In the YouTube Video down blow Lawrence Wright joins Washington Post columnist David Ignatius at Washington Post Live:

 



 

Washington Post Live is the newsroom’s live journalism platform, featuring interviews with top-level government officials, business leaders, cultural influencers and emerging voices on the most pressing issues driving the news cycle nationally and across the globe. From one-on-one, newsmaker interviews to in-depth multi-segment programs, Washington Post Live brings The Post’s newsroom to life on stage.

Subscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube: https://wapo.st/2QOdcqK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writers Bloc and Chevalier’s Books Present: A Panel on JAMES ELLROY’S New Book, WIDESPREAD PANIC (Knopf)

 

On June 22nd, 2021 Andrea Grossman, over at THE WRITER’S BLOC PRESENTS website, got a bunch of Panelists together (YouTube Video down below) to celebrate James Ellroy’s latest book , WIDESPREAD PANIC: A NOVEL (Knopf). There is also a limited-supply of Signed Copies over at CHEVALIER’S BOOKS.

James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia, and other great novels about Los Angeles crime and punishment, has just released a new novel about L.A. Cops, Celebrities, and Scandal Mongers. WIDESPREAD PANIC is trademark Ellroy: propulsive writing, nonstop action, and characters plucked from the tabloids and evening news.

Ellroy describes it best himself in his alliterative elucidations: “From the modern master of noir comes a novel about the malevolent monarch of the 1950s Hollywood underground—a tale of pervasive paranoia teeming with communist conspiracies, FBI finks, celebrity smut films, and strange bedfellows. Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in ‘50s L.A. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp—and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet—and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank. It mauled misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Mattress Jack Kennedy, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson—Frantic Freddy outed them all. He was the Tattle Tyrant who held Hollywood hostage, and now he’s here to CONFESS.”

Please be sure to check out the YouTube Video down below. The panelists will add to the fun: John Anderson and Grant Nebel are Ellroy scholars and enthusiasts who created the Ellroycast, and have written extensively about pop culture, film, and television. Joan Renner is a social historian and author who writes on true crime in historical Los Angeles. Zoe Dean is an award winning short story writer of crime fiction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Chip Kidd Book Cover/Design – THINGS WE LOST TO WATER: A NOVEL by Eric Nguyen

 

THINGS WE LOST TO WATER: A NOVEL by Eric Nguyen

A captivating novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped. This stunning debut is “vast in scale and ambition, while luscious and inviting … in its intimacy” (The New York Times Book Review).ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SUMMER 2021 READING LIST • Named one of the “Fifteen Books to Watch for” by The New York Times When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she attempts to come to terms with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father’s shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memories and imaginations. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong gets involved with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity–as individuals and as a family–threatens to tear them apart, un­til disaster strikes the city they now call home and they are suddenly forced to find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.

 

Be Sure to Check Out This Audio Excerpt:

 

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf  (May 04, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN ‏ : ‎ 9780593317952 
Cover Design : Chip Kidd

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Chip Kidd Book Cover/Design – WIDESPREAD PANIC: A NOVEL by James Ellroy #Knopf

 

WIDESPREAD PANIC: A NOVEL by James Ellroy

From the modern master of noir comes a novel based on the real-life Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash, the malevolent monarch of the 1950s L.A. underground, and his Tinseltown tabloid Confidential magazine.

Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in ‘50s L.A. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp—and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine. 
 
Confidential presaged the idiot internet—and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank. It mauled misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Mattress Jack Kennedy, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson—Frantic Freddy outed them all. He was the Tattle Tyrant who held Hollywood hostage, and now he’s here to CONFESS.
 
“I’m consumed with candor and wracked with recollection. I’m revitalized and resurgent. My meshugenah march down memory lane begins NOW.”
 
In Freddy’s viciously entertaining voice, Widespread Panic torches 1950s Hollywood to the ground. It’s a blazing revelation of coruscating corruption, pervasive paranoia, and of sin and redemption with nothing in between.
 
Here is James Ellroy in savage quintessence. Freddy Otash confesses—and you are here to read and succumb.

 

Hey Man, also be sure to check out this short audio-clip excerpt from the book:

https://chipkidd.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Widespread-Panic-by-James-Ellroy.mp3

 

 

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; 1st Edition (June 15, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593319346
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593319345
Cover Design : Chip Kidd

 

 

 

Publishers Weekly Book Review – SEEK YOU: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICAN LONELINESS By KRISTEN RADTKE (Pantheon Graphic Novel)

 

Since Kristen Radtke’s latest Graphic Novel, “SEEK YOU: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICAN LONELINESS (Pantheon)”, just came out we thought we would share one of it’s early book reviews. This one was written by Louisa Ermelino over at PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Please besure to check it out!!

 

 

 

 

Murakami 村上 RADIO With Author & DJ, Haruki Murakami～[再放送] 2020.01.28

Down below is an example of MURAKAMI RADIO. Of course we’re talking about Haruki Murakami, the Author. He is also a Radio DJ & he enjoys sharing music he really loves. There’s a lot of American Music in the mix, mostly Jazz, Bossa Nova, & many other styles. So, please be sure to check it out & if you like it then please feel free to subscribe to his YouTube channel for more. It’s a really nice thing to listen to while working or relaxing. Thanks :)

 



 

 

 

 

New Graphic Novel Out Now – SEEK YOU: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICAN LONELINESS By KRISTEN RADTKE

SEEK YOU: A JOURNEY THROUGH AMERICAN LONELINESS by Kristen Radtke has just been released by Pantheon today (July 13th) so I thought I’d post an audio sample of it & share some of the praise it’s gotten so far. Plus, down below all that is a list of the Author’s Virtual Book Tour Dates for the rest of July. Please be sure to check those out!

 

So, to start things out here’s an audio sample:

https://chipkidd.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/seek-you-00001.mp3

 

Next, check out these reviews & quotes received so far….amazing!

 

One of . . . Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2021 • BuzzFeed’s 28 New Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List ASAP • StyleBlueprint’s 2021 Summer Reading List picks •  Vulture’s 35 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer • Vogue’s Best Books to Read This Summer • Lit Hub’s 75 Nonfiction Books You Should Read This Summer • Daily Beast’s Best Summer Reads of 2021 • The Boston Globe’s Summer Reading 2021 Picks • BuzzFeed’s 58 Great Books to Read This Summer • The Washington Post’s 10 Books to Read in July • NPR’s July Book-Ahead Picks • Oprah Daily’s 18 of the Best Books to Pick Up This July • TIME’s 11 New Books You Should Read in July • Bustle’s 43 Most Anticipated New Books of July 2021 • Book Riot’s 2021 Reading List for Adults

“Kristen Radtke’s Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness defies categorization — and it does so in spectacular fashion . . . The beauty of Seek You is that it feels like a communal experience. Reading this book is reading about ourselves and our lives . . . The art is superb and each section uses different colors to set the mood, but words take center stage more often than the art, and that turns the art into the perfect companion . . . Seek You accomplishes a lot and its unique hybrid nature makes it a must-read.”
—Gabino Iglesias, NPR 

“[A] resonant, haunting volume of graphic nonfiction written and drawn in the key of Edward Hopper . . . It’s the juxtaposition of Radtke’s carefully researched, tightly composed text with the emotive immediacy of her art that amplifies the book’s impact . . . There’s comfort to be found too, in the skillful elegance with which the author conveys her ideas . . . Seek You is indeed for seekers.”
—Heller McAlpin, Los Angeles Times

“Seek You stunned me. Kristen Radtke, one of the best of our literary artists, shines her brilliant light into modern America’s experiment in loneliness with this supremely elegant and devastating book. It was my companion during a long, dark night of the soul; I emerged grateful to have had such sleekness and wit, such calm intelligence, to guide me back to daylight.”
—Lauren Groff, author of Florida

“If you’ve ever felt alone in America, this is the book you have been waiting to hold, and the one that will hold you back.”
—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk

“Kristen Radtke’s Seek You seems almost to invent something brand new: the comic strip feature documentary? The long-form graphic essay? I dunno, and it really doesn’t matter, because the humanity so keenly summed up in every line and mark of Radtke’s hand transcendently transmutes both the seriousness of her investigatory aim and the genuine desperation which underpins its timely yet universal thesis—all the while magnified by the skill, empathy and great intelligence of its author.”
—Chris Ware, author of Rusty Brown

“Rarely has nonfiction been as topical as in Kristen Radtke’s wide-ranging exploration of loneliness . . . Radtke expertly traces the cultural origins of loneliness . . . posing the question: what, specifically, do we lose—as individuals, and as a society—when we turn inward?”
—Vogue, “The Best Books to Read This Summer”

“This stunning book is less a memoir than a long graphic essay, more a meditation and less a solution. How we disconnect may help us understand how to ultimately connect.”
—The Washington Post, “10 Books to Read in July”

“Seek You is the kind of post-pandemic narrative we’ve been waiting for. It’s sad, profound, and shows a superb understanding of the variety of ways in which we process trauma and isolation. A strange hybrid between a graphic memoir and something like a graphic essay, Seek You might just be what we all need to start truly processing the loneliness we’ve been through.”
—NPR, “July Book-Ahead: What We’re Excited to Read Next Month”

“Coming just as we begin to emerge from pandemic-related isolation, Radtke’s gorgeously drawn book examines our modern tendency toward an unhappy aloneness—a sad topic, but one she hopes we can understand and conquer, leading us back toward loving community.”
—The Boston Globe, “Summer Reading 2021”

“In pages full of haunting illustrations, Seek You prompts readers to look inwards. In forcing us to confront our own loneliness, Radtke makes us feel a little less alone.”
— TIME, “Here Are the 11 New Books You Should Read in July”

“Gorgeous . . . A genre-bending work that lays bare both the costs and benefits of solitude.”
—Oprah Daily, “18 of the Best Books to Pick Up This July”

“Immersive, novelistic and intensely humanistic . . . [Seek You] curls through autobiographical episodes ranging from her Wisconsin suburban childhood to New York adulthood. . . These make up some of the book’s lovelier sections with Radtke’s enigmatic text contrasting with her richly precise, Chris Ware-ian illustrations of darkened buildings illuminated by bright rectangular windows framing people in solitude . . .  [Seek You’s] aching, keening sense of humanity is almost as powerful as its evocative artwork.”
—Chris Barsanti, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A meditation on isolation and longing, examines the silent epidemic of loneliness in America, from the invention of the laugh-track to the unethical experiments of Harry Harlow. Radtke is a writer of enviable emotional intelligence, and one of our most elegant and virtuosic artists of devastation.”
—Dan Sheehan, “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2021”

“A marvelous deep dive into that universal emotion, blending science, memoir, journalism, research, philosophy, and pop culture to explore isolation and our desire to be close to one another . . . Seek You explores ways that loneliness is assuaged, even without our knowledge, like through the laugh track of sitcoms, created to make the viewer feel that others are there.”
—Publishers Weekly, “Kristen Radtke Writes, and Draws, Our Loneliness”

“Radtke is unsentimental yet sincere, citing research on the impact of social isolation on life expectancy (it’s not good) and offering as salient a description of loneliness as I’ve read.”
—Vulture, “35 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer”

“Radtke pulls out moments from recent history that reveal a deeply felt need for connection . . . and connects them to her lived experience, exploring the possibility of deeper meaning with humility, grace, and remarkable insight into the human condition. It’s a bittersweet and especially moving journey following more than a year of unprecedented alienation and despair.”
—BuzzFeed, “28 New Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List ASAP”

“It’s difficult to think of anyone better suited to investigate this melancholy paradox than Kristen Radtke, whose graphic narratives convey—often with dizzying potency—the full range of how human solitude can manifest.”
—Lit Hub, “75 Nonfiction Books You Should Read This Summer”

“Devastating and vital . . . Radtke perfectly captures what it’s like to live in a lonely body, as well as examining loneliness in a historical, scientific, and cultural context.”
—StyleBlueprint, “Your 2021 Summer Reading List”

“This graphic novel is a striking blend of cultural history, memoir, journalism, and sociology.”
—Book Riot, “2021 Reading List for Adults”

“Gripping . . . Combining personal narrative with social science, evolutionary biology, and pop culture analysis, Radtke’s work is innovative in form and painfully relevant in content . . . Somber illustrations range from journalistic to starkly symbolic, in variations on gray that establish a flat and lonely world, making the gradient sunset hues that sometimes burst through that much brighter . . . For a treatise about the perils of being alone, [Seek You] creates a wonderful sense of being drawn into conversation.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Deeply affecting . . . Radtke is an engaging and thoughtful guide through our fear of being alone . . . Superb. A rigorous, vulnerable book on a subject that is too often neglected.”
—Kirkus, starred review

“In graphic-essay style, Radtke centers her inquiry around four human behaviors—listen, watch, click, and touch—and devotes rich, meandering chapters to each . . . Radtke’s crisp, vector-drawn illustrations more than hint at reality; rather, in their layering and arrangement, they seem to reproduce it in truer, more emotional detail. Provocative and companionable, this will spark conversation and, undoubtedly, connection among readers.”
—Booklist, starred review

“In often poetic prose accompanied by stunning illustration, Radtke weaves together personal anecdotes and examples drawn from physical and mental health studies to create a meditation on the causes and cost of isolation . . . An insightful and compassionate investigation of loneliness.”
—Library Journal, starred

 

And, if all that doesn’t get you excited then please be sure to check out some of these FREE Virtual-Online Book Events for the rest of July featuring Kristen Radtke, enjoy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foreign Policy Book Review: GENIUSES AT WAR (How World War II Code-Breakers Created the Modern Digital World)

 

Here’s a quick shout out to Author David A. Price for receiving this amazing review over at the FOREIGN POLICY website for his latest book, “GENIUSES AT WAR: Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of The Digital Age” (Knopf). Of course we’re featuring it here because the book (& it’s cover design) was designed by Chip Kidd. But seriously, this book deserves all the praise it gets, it’s got a very well thought out story line with historic details. Please be sure to CLICK HERE to read their review. Thanks also to Janine di Giovanni, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs for her wonderful review.