Illustrator and designer Matt Stevens creates fanciful versions of pulp fiction book covers from films and TV shows that never originate as books. He imaginatively blends a variety of graphic styles and typography into book covers . Stevens began this project in 2023 and has now published the results in a collection dubbed Good Movies as Old Books—available in bookshops and online.
Here’s what Stevens had to say about the project in an interview with Print magazine :
My goal with the style was to try new things and create interesting combinations. Oftentimes, I was trying to do something that had not been done for a particular film. So many of these more known films have so much visual imagery already associated with them, I really focused on doing something that hadn’t been done before, or where the style created a really interesting combination of style and film. I would keep a list of films and a big Pinterest board of styles I liked or wanted to try. Often keeping those things both going at the same time, the combinations would just reveal themselves as I worked.
by Louise Glück
There was one summer
that returned many times over
there was one flower unfurling
taking many forms
Crimson of the monarda, pale gold of the late roses
There was one love
There was one love, there were many nights
Smell of the mock orange tree
Corridors of jasmine and lilies
Still the wind blew
There were many winters but I closed my eyes
The cold air white with dissolved wings
There was one garden when the snow melted
Azure and white; I couldn’t tell
my solitude from love —
There was one love; he had many voices
There was one dawn; sometimes
we watched it together
I was here
I was here
There was one summer returning over and over
there was one dawn
I grew old watching
Like all good fans, I’m hyped about the V&A’s 90,000-piece archive of David Bowie stuff — costumes, photos, drawings, lyrics, etc.
The David Bowie Centre is a working archive with new reading and study rooms. The archive contains over 80,000 items, including 414 costumes and accessories, nearly 150 musical instruments and other sound equipment, designs, props and scenery for concerts, film and theatre. Bowie’s own desk is part of the archive, alongside notebooks, diaries, lyrics, correspondence, fan mail and over 70,000 photographic prints, negatives and transparencies.
The Centre is brought to life with a series of small, curated displays. Highlights include 1970s Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto, a film showcasing performances from Bowie’s career, and an installation tracing his impact on popular culture.
Take a peek via this video tour of the Bowie collection by Jessica the Museum Guide:
Just in time for this year’s Banned Books Week, a documentary called The Librarians, directed by Kim A. Snyder (Death by Numbers, Us Kids, Newton, and more) and executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, is being released in the U.S. October 3.
As PEN America wrote, “The Librarians follows a group of determined library professionals on the front lines. The film lays bare the links between local school board battles and a broader political agenda fueled by Christian Nationalism.”
The Librarians calls librarians “first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.”
A focus is the Krause List in Texas that targets 850 books concerning “race and LGBTQIA+ stories–triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work–the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale.”
It’s that time of the year again. Banned Books Week, scheduled for October 5-11, has been “celebrated” annually since its launch in 1982. For most of us in the formerly free USA, the 2025 rendition feels like the most crucial and necessary of all the Banned Books Weeks over the past 43 years. Assaults on books in schools, school libraries, and bookstores have become part of the politics of this era, and include special pressure to remove or limit access to LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and progressive titles. The federal and many state and local governments as well as organized groups are involved in efforts to impose a rigid interpretation of American history, cultural life, and representation. The efforts are so powerful that more and more incidents of self-censorship are occurring. At the same time, book banners continue to deny that they are banning books. Earlier this year, the federal Department of Education called book banning “a hoax.”
Very appropriately this year’s theme for Banned Books Week is “Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights.” The important components of Banned Books Week this year include Let Freedom Read Day, efforts to encourage voting and contributing to anti-banning activity, and more. Booksellers are marking the occasion in a variety of creative ways, including with displays, events, education about banned books, banned book clubs, etc.
Organized by the American Library Association, Banned Books Week is supported by more than 200 organizations and tens of thousands of individuals. These include the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, the ABA’s American Booksellers for Free Expression, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the Children’s Book Council, the Little Free Library, the National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the Authors Guild, and others.
Among the aspects of Books Week is Unite Against Book Bans, an ALA initiative begun in 2022 that “strives to stop the removal of reading materials from America’s libraries and schools.” The group has released a collection of book résumés to support keeping frequently challenged books on shelves. The book résumés feature information provided by publishers, librarians, authors, illustrators, and School Library Journal, including a synopsis of the book, reviews and awards the book has received, more from the book creators themselves, and links to other resources, relevant media, and more.”
A special part of Banned Books Week this year is Let Freedom Read Day on Saturday, October 11, the last day of the week. As Banned Books Week organizers put it, “We’re asking everyone to get ready to vote for the freedom to read or to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available.”
The recommended actions include:
While I was researching an upcoming trip in the Baltic nations, I stumbled on this interesting graphic which describes an exciting rail project in the region.
The Rail Baltica project is set to finally integrate the Baltics into the European rail network and create a modern, high-speed rail link through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, with connections to Poland and potentially Finland. The network will enable high-speed trains to run up to four times a day from Tallinn to Warsaw. Beyond its economic benefits, the rail link could also reshape regional population dynamics. Remarkably, 7 million people will live within a 25 km band of the railway’s route.
“We don’t write the play, we don’t produce it, we don’t direct it , and we are not even actors in it. Everybody eventually comes to the conclusion that things are not unfolding exactly the way they wanted, and that the whole enterprise has a basis that you can’t penetrate. Nevertheless, you live your life as if it is real. But with the understanding, it is only a thousand kisses deep, that is , with that deep intuitive understanding that this is unfolding according to a pattern that you simply cannot discern” – Leonard Cohen
The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it’s done –
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep:
You ditch it all to stay alive,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
I made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet –
And then consented to be wrecked,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
I guess they won’t exchange the gifts
That you were meant to keep.
And quiet is the thought of you
The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I really enjoyed playing with the new website Chrono Trains . Plug in any train station in Europe and this website will show you exactly how far you can travel on the continent’s rail networks within a set period of time. Useful for those of you looking to see how easy it will be to skedaddle using environmentally-friendly means, or, if you’re just looking to plan a travel itinerary. And it gives you links to buy tickets for the journeys it plans out, which is just perfect.
Travel Between The Pages 