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November 30, 2003
Some Books I've Noticed
Another interesting looking book is Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death which is a companion book to the HBO series. I'm not a big fan of TV show companion books. They are nearly always hastily produced assemblages of screen captures and mind-numbingly idiotic text, but this one appears to break the mold a bit. The book isn't an episode guide; instead it meanders through various backstories in an appropriately eerie sort of way, with lots of odd photos and ephmera related to the show. In that sense it's interesting for what it is, but it's also a triumph in book design. The book slides into this odd, plastic, vertical slip cover that is faintly reminiscent of a coffin, and the book itself lacks a traditional spine, and instead appears to be a series of booklets artfully woven together.
Finally, I'm sure all the Mcsweeney's watchers have seen this item, which for me falls into the annoying "weird for the sake of being weird" category. Projects like William T. Vollman's Rising Up and Rising Down keep me interested, but it bugs me to see McSweeney's squandering the advantages they have over other independent publishers with so much forced silliness and ironic posturing.
- C. Max Magee @ 8:48 PM ~
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