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Reviews of our recent collaboration, Jinx Companion, continue to pop up. We're especially tickled by this one: This collaborative work proves that self-published books can really, truly succeed. The Jinx Companion, a fun and informative study guide of sorts, was compiled by three writers—Craig Conley, Gordon Meyer, and Fredrick Turner—over the course of a yearlong study of Annemann's Jinx magazine.
Arguably one of the most important periodicals in the history of conjuring, and the source of much inspiration and the fodder for many other books, it's a wonder that no one considered planning a guided tour of The Jinx before.
Thankfully, this triumvirate knows how to lead an expedition, and has done so with great style and a sense of fun, which permeates each page of the publication. The trio culled important or fascinating references, mapped out paths to forgotten miracles, and brought back other tantalizing tidbits from obscurity (or the depths of memory, at least). Incorporated throughout are the cut-and-paste graphics that made Annemann's original so intriguing and visually interesting in the first place. All those factors make this a trip worth taking.
... Ultimately ... the treatise is a keeper. It reawakened my interest in past bits that I'd forgotten about, and it opened my eyes to things I'd never really noticed in Annemann's work. And that's the general idea, so the authors have clearly scored a hit.
—Gabe Fajuri, MAGIC Magazine |
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The shortest novel is seldom read but at intervals.
—Henry James Pye
Read six books today from our collection of the shortest novels ever written. (We've illustrated them in your honor.)  Snakes in Irelandby Margaret Deland There are no snakes in Ireland.  The Dinosaurby Augusto Monterroso When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.
 Englewood Entropyby Anonymous Dr. Blanton Tufford, a Stanford University physics professor who studied the structure of the universe, was killed on Sunday when a car crashed into the Englewood, N.J., coffee shop where he was sitting.
 Untitledattributed to Ernest Hemingway For sale: baby shoes, never worn.  Untitledby Alfred Charles Richard Coughfing [sic], coffin!
 Knockby Fredric Brown The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door. Also: An unusual love story emerges from two entries in Kent County, Maryland Marriage License records. On April 22, 1797, both Jogn Lewin and Robert Curry took out licenses to marry Jane Bird. A note by the clerk on the page on which the records were made, just under Curry's name, says, "Curry was successful." Here is a whole two-volume romance condensed in two names and dates, and a sentence of three words. Probably the shortest novel ever written. (source: Pioneer Pathfinder, 1985) See also: http://www.hillarydepiano.com/2006/11/01/the-shortest-novels-ever-written/
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Here's a charming moment from Genevieve (1953), dedicated to literary scalawag Jonathan Caws-Elwitt (who coins words in his sleep — and remembers them upon waking!): |
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Here's a charming moment from Genevieve (1953), dedicated to literary scalawag Jonathan Caws-Elwitt (who coins words in his sleep — and remembers them upon waking!): |
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A collaborative work between poets Gary Barwin and Hugh Thomas and featuring illustrations by Craig Conley, the book – as its title suggests – takes the paradoxical and absurd prose of the Czech literary giant as a point of departure for tangential musings on language, transformation and, of course, the nature of parable itself. The book’s authors summarized the impetus of the project early in the evening with the proclamation that “new writing is the imaginary future of past writing.” It is with this sense of creative lineage that Franzlations sets out to explore the labyrinthine corridors of Kafka’s work. ...
Against projections of Conley’s minimal, diagrammatic illustrations, Barwin and Thomas alternated rapidly between each other, juggling their book’s seemingly self-contained aphorisms and parables in a rhythm that highlighted the project’s overall cohesion.
A tribute to Kafka stripped of the element of narrative might easily risk being a fragmented experience, a mere collection of paradoxes and non-rational linguistic puzzles. Fortunately, Barwin and Thomas inject the word-play of Franzlations with exactly the kind of wit and dark humor often overlooked in Kafka’s own work. Rather than focus on the nightmarish quality of Kafka’s writing, Barwin and Thomas emphasize the playful irony of metamorphosis, the way in which things both are and are not what they appear to be. In one memorable riff on that infamous opening line, the authors recounted how “one morning Ovid woke to find himself a Czech insurance officer.” While Barwin and Thomas moved deftly between these registers Thursday night, between light-heartedness and cerebral absurdity, so many mirrors, inversions and mazes eventually sent this reviewer’s head spinning. Clearly, Franzlations is a book to be absorbed slowly and revisited. After all, as the authors themselves noted, “a road is a labyrinth unfurled.”
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Page 56 of 74
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