Saturday 13 October 2007

So, what's your favorite publishing house?


God, what a fucking nerdy thing to say. I'm gonna have to skateboard off a cliff, slam a Mountain Dew (Do the dew!) and give a killer high five to a chimp in a members only jacket while kickin' it at a beach party with some hot babes right as soon as I finish this post. It's either that or risk complete COOL SUICIDE. But I'm not gonna lie. Over the past year I have discovered that I do, in fact, have a favorite publishing house.

Let me put it to you like this. Dedalus Books is like the Mute Records of publishing (except for that being owned by EMI thing). I can easily imagine Mute recordings artists Cabaret Voltaire, Diamanda Galas, and somebody kinda goth-y, maybe the Virgin Prunes or something being totally into Dedalus' European Classics or Decadence editions. What makes Dedalus kick-ass is the way they make it so damn easy to imagine all the editors, sales people and literary agents involved in the company tossing back absinthe, effortlessly tossing off bon mots and being all around dapper and dissolute. With titles like
The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides:Dead Letters
, The Decadent Handbook, and a dedication to searching through the darkly disturbing lost classics of European literature, these publishers ain't no Dial Press (the abomination responsible for the release of The Manny). The first Dedalus book I read was Georges Rodenbach's 1892 novella Bruges-la-Morte, an obsessive and somber little number with a great cover featuring what I think (and hope) are bats departing a cathedral tower. Interspersed with Rodenbach's prose are a series of original photographs of the Belgian city in its perpetual aura of stately decay, a suitable compliment to the author's tale of a man obsessed by an actress who resembles his dead wife. It's well-written, atmospheric, and heck, who hasn't been just a little bit obsessed with a dead lover?

And I'm out. Hang ten, bro.

1 comment:

Mark Tidrick said...

Here is my favorite literary press:

http://www.darksidepress.com/index.html

There are some very mouth watering titles available through Dedalus Books! Thanks for mentioning it...I guess I have to start saving my pennies - decadence can be so damn expensive!