Norman O. Brown’s ‘Love’s Body’ at ISTD’s ‘Talking Books’ Stammtisch

On Wednesday October 13 I will be giving a short talk on Norman O. Brown’s amazing 1966 volume Love’s Body as part of an event organized by International Society of Typographical Designers with the Helvetic Centre. Their ‘Talking Books’ Stammtisch is to coincide with the Most Beautiful Swiss Books exhibition, which has been touring since 2009, and features a number of writers and designers talking about their favourite book. I had no hesitation in selecting Love’s Body as my volume of choice – but you will have to attend the event to find out why: it is taking place at the Russian Club Gallery, 340 –344 Kingsland Road, London E8 4DA, and the whole event is due to start at 7.00 pm. See the flyer reproduced above or the appropriate Google Calendar entry elsewhere on this page for more details.

I am also using this post to announce a new feature on this blog. My talk on Love’s Body also marks the start of ‘Pulp Modernism’: a series of posts devoted to examples of fabulous paperback cover art from the 1950s through to the late 1970s – the truly great decades for mass-market sex, violence and intellectual splendour. I am indebted to Mark Fisher and Andy Sharp  for framing the concept so marvellously during the course of the ‘Spaces’ episode in the original Hollingsville series on Resonance 104.4 FM. I’m not sure which of the two came up with the term first, but I do know who intends to exploit it ruthlessly from this point on – my thanks to them both.