The Slide

Kyle Beachy's debut novel The Slide comes out this week. You should get it. I did the cover, but that's not why--it's also a really good read. Beachy does a clever and relentless inversion of a traditional middle-American coming of age tale...complete with ghosts, baseball, statutory rape and a dissolving marriage. He'll be reading from it at the Book Cellar in Chicago on Thursday, January 29th.

A taxonomy, your mother, the distant stars, Ulisse Aldrovandi, and some slightly assymetrical redactions

King Penguin part four

Images below are from Seashore Life and Pattern (1944), with "colour plates made and printed by John Swain and Sons, Ltd".

King Penguin part three

Below are images from Spiders (1947) with images "made and printed by" John Swain and Sons; and British Shells (1943) with "colour plates made and printed by The Baynard Press".

More Notable Happenings in the Press

The current issue of The Believer features 14 small drawings I did from items in my collection of broken and discarded toys. The drawings are scattered throughout the magazine in the margins. They also printed three different inside covers, each featuring a different painting of mine. Below are a few of the drawings.



The broken and discarded toys themselves are slated to appear in a show at Finestra Art Space in Chicago in mid February.

The King Penguin part 2

Below are images from British Reptiles and Amphibia (1949) illustrated by Paxton Chadwick and British Military Uniforms (1948) with color plates by John Swain.

Five Days Left

Last week most of the images in the show at Littlebird, Landscapes and Smoke, were posted on the gallery site. Here is the one lone image that was not. It's called Adam and Eve and the Lion of St. Jerome, and is partly inspired by all the St. Jerome images of Albrecht Durer.

The show comes down next Thursday.

The King Penguin Books

This Christmas I was given a set of amazing little books from a series Penguin UK published in the 1930's and 40's. They are small hardcovers, each with a short section of color plates illustrating its respective subject. I'll be posting further selections over the next few weeks. The images below are from Poisonous Funghi (1945), illustrations by Rose Ellenby; Flowers of Marsh and Stream (1946), drawings by Noel Rooke; and A Book of Roses (1939), with drawings by Pierre-Joseph Redoute. By the way, it really is worth clicking on the images below to get a closer look. Thanks to Heather.

Who you are, how you're feeling, the devil, your guts, a guy in a wheelchair.