This Folio Life: 2017
2017 was a happy year for Folio. Pivoting around our seventieth anniversary celebrations, we looked back to our early days in a delightful display still ongoing at the V&A in London; and we looked forward with what I hope you’ve found an exhilarating list of books. We have moved offices as well in this last year, but the heart of Folio has thankfully not changed one bit – our enthusiasm for our books. We are planning titles now for many years ahead, but I’ve been taking some time lately to look back at the successes of last year.
I am always astonished at the range of our titles: the top-selling new titles of 2017 were American Gods, Neil Gaiman’s epic American fantasy; The Little Prince, that delicate wistful classic of innocence and of experience; and Defeat into Victory, General Slim’s magisterial account of the Burma Campaign. The diversity on display here is what makes our work – and hopefully your bookshelves – quite so rewarding.
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The Little Prince; American Gods; Defeat into Victory[/caption]
Amongst the others that have proved popular is a surprisingly large proportion of crime and thriller novels - from Golden Age classics by Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie to Le Carré’s cold-war nerve-wrecker, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and the latest in our Fay Dalton-illustrated James Bond series. Crime can be illustrated so beautifully – all that atmosphere and tension to capture – so this is perhaps unsurprising. These titles are particularly enjoyable to work on for all of us here, not least in discovering the best of the genre from such a wide pool – a task made easy by the amateur sleuths amongst our editorial team.
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And Then There Were None; Moonraker; Lord Peter Views the Body; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[/caption]
My own personal favourite, and a title which made it near the top of the list, is our book of Psalms. This is such a simple little volume, but our edition is elegant without being extravagant, restrained and sympathetic to the text – very much my kind of book-making!
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The Book of Psalms[/caption]
My mind is usually now on 2019 and beyond, and I find it an odd experience looking now at books which were ‘sent to press’ many months ago, but I must say 2018 is looking like a fine year for Folio’s publishing. I hope you find time to enjoy some of our editions over the coming months, and wish you a happy bibliophilic new year.
The Little Prince; American Gods; Defeat into Victory[/caption]
Amongst the others that have proved popular is a surprisingly large proportion of crime and thriller novels - from Golden Age classics by Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie to Le Carré’s cold-war nerve-wrecker, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and the latest in our Fay Dalton-illustrated James Bond series. Crime can be illustrated so beautifully – all that atmosphere and tension to capture – so this is perhaps unsurprising. These titles are particularly enjoyable to work on for all of us here, not least in discovering the best of the genre from such a wide pool – a task made easy by the amateur sleuths amongst our editorial team.
[caption id="attachment_6053" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] And Then There Were None; Moonraker; Lord Peter Views the Body; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold[/caption]
My own personal favourite, and a title which made it near the top of the list, is our book of Psalms. This is such a simple little volume, but our edition is elegant without being extravagant, restrained and sympathetic to the text – very much my kind of book-making!
[caption id="attachment_6055" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
The Book of Psalms[/caption]
My mind is usually now on 2019 and beyond, and I find it an odd experience looking now at books which were ‘sent to press’ many months ago, but I must say 2018 is looking like a fine year for Folio’s publishing. I hope you find time to enjoy some of our editions over the coming months, and wish you a happy bibliophilic new year.