Folio Society Updates: LE The Count of Monte Cristo & Double Philip K. Dick!

After the quite underwhelming Autumn Collection (for some people), the Folio Society has decided to bring out two new titles today. A 500 copies limited edition of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and a two cover, double illustrated, colour frenzied thing of madness! It is of course Philip K. Dick's two dystopian science-fiction works, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep together with A Scanner Darkly. 

The Count of Monte Cristo - Limited Edition

But why not talk a bit about the limited edition of The Count of Monte Cristo first. The book is bound in goatskin leather, it is signed by the artist Roman Pisarev. But honestly, does it not look a bit like a more cleaned up Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Collection Edition?
I have yet to read The Count of Monte Cristo, but this LE does not really intrigue me at all. Don't get me wrong, I like the low limitation number, signature and the illustrations but the resemblance to other, much cheaper, leatherbound books don't really attract me.

Limited Edition of The Count of Monte Cristo

I'm sure both Monte Cristo enthusiasts and Pisarev fans will like the book quite a bit though. The price is also not half bad at £195!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep & A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

Another book joins the trio of Folio Society's "collectors edition" at the gripping price of £75. So far we have Dune, The Call of Cthulhu..., and American Gods. I own just that trio myself but I will not plunge for this edition (at least not right now, but probably in the future).
Being quarter-bound in a... interesting, almost neon-green cloth, with paper(!) sides, I just don't feel it right now. The half-gimmicky idea of having two novels, each on the opposite side of the book is refreshing(?) and I do like the idea from the Folio Society.
Having not read any Dick myself either, I guess that also play a role on me not being that interested.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep together with A Scanner Darkly. 

The illustrations? Looks top, and I also appreciate Folio Society making a video showing the book together with a little talk with the artists. Pretty awesome!

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All-in-all an exciting day for Folio Society lovers. I do think that the Philip K. Dick edition will be fairly popular among many science-fiction readers.
But for now I don't think we will see more books until the Christmas Collection in November/December (unless they sneak in a Bond or a Austen book, that is). Might also be time to rest your wallets until the New Year Sale. That is my recommendation!

The Exorcist – Folio Society Reviews

About a year ago the Folio Society had a "poll" on Twitter were The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty was one of five horror titles (if I remember correctly) that you could vote on. I don't know if Folio Society followed up on that poll afterwards but here, one year later, we have The Exorcist.

My initial reaction when the book first arrived was not overly positive. While the typography and simple binding design was attractive and fitting to the book, what I found inside did disappoint me a bit.
The book compared to other Folio Society editions felt a bit cheap. This was mainly due to the paper used (Abbey Lynx Rough Paper) and the paper used for the illustrations.
I still stand by my initial reaction and I will go into more details below.

Burnt-red binding with inverted crucifix

Binding:

There is not much to say about the binding other than that I do really like it. The burnt-red cloth, the embossed letters with an interesting and pleasant typeface, the inverted crucifix. It is simple but it works very well.
The headband is also the same red colour as the binding, and the same with the endpapers. All-in-all a positive experience, with a cloth that both feel and smell good (although, the cloth leaves a powdery/sticky feeling on your hands afterwards, something that I have experienced in other cloth bound editions).

Paper:

The decision to use a completely white paper for this edition makes sense. The Abbey Lynx Rough Paper (will shorten it to ALRP) is a good paper and I do not doubt the quality of it compared with other Folio Society editions. However, my initial reaction was that the paper felt and looked cheap. Maybe I'm too used to other Folio editions cream-coloured paper (that is Abbey Wove Paper) and seeing a white paper inside a Folio book just surprised me. Or maybe I associate white paper with books of lesser quality? I don't know. I still feel that a book like The Exorcist should have a warm cream-coloured paper.

But since the book has coloured chapter headings (illustrated by the artist Jeremy Caniglia), having a white paper makes sense to bring out the correct colours. Even the page numbers are in a brown/gold colour. It is then clear that the Folio Society decided to use a white paper since they used coloured chapter headings and page numbers. It is a very logical decision and I therefor respect the use of ALRP.

Something I don't understand though is the paper used for the illustrations. Why in the world would you not use photographic paper for photographic illustrations?!
For me it ruins a lot having an even thinner paper (I believe it is thinner than ALRP) used for the illustrations and deciding not to use photographic paper. Not only does it bring the quality of the print down when you use regular paper, but it also takes away the feeling of the illustrations. Using photographic paper would undoubtedly bring more authenticity to the illustrations, and authenticity is exactly what you want to experience when you are reading a horror novel that is based on a real life events.

Illustrations: 

And then we have the photographic illustrations by Jeremy Caniglia. They are both realistic and creepy, but I would not say that I enjoy all of them. It is quite hard to differentiate what is what in some of the illustrations. They are also very dark and with the added lack of printing quality, I'm not overly impressed with them.

Illustration of Regan McNeil

Conclusion:

I cannot help but to feel that this edition of The Exorcist was a bit rushed. No original illustrations combined with a simple binding design and a lack of good paper for the illustrations do not convince me that this book is worth its asking price of £40 (plus the quite premium shipping costs...).

But if you are a fellow horror fan, then I guess you wont be able to help yourself. I know that I couldn't...

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Here is a link to my video presentation: https://youtu.be/MQZRWJKwBLk

What is this?

Hello fellow book lovers and book collectors!

I have decided to start a little blog! A little blog about what you might ask? Well, books of course! But here is the thing: on my YouTube channel (Pontus Presents) I solely focus on the very physical aspect of books; the design, the binding, the quality of the paper (maybe I should introduce a smell part to my videos too? I know people do enjoy smelling their books, hmm...)*, but you are probably aware of this already. What do I want with this little blog then? The plan is simple:

This is a blog about all things book collecting and all things beautiful books. Yes. ALL things beautiful books.

Attractive photos of books. Book collecting tips & tricks. In-Depth Reviews. Beautiful books speculations. Me ranting about the Folio Society.

I want this to be a platform dedicated to the utter most elegance of books that are produced with that little extra... that little extra I like to call a book soul. You know when you are holding a book that has a soul compared to a book who lacks one. You can feel it in the binding. You can smell it. You can feel the soul linger on your fingertips when you turn the pages. You know what I mean.

I truly hope you will find your place here and enjoy what I have to share!

That is all for this first post.

I wish you all the best.

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Sincerely,

Pontus.


* I will use parentheses whenever I want express stuff that just suddenly pops into my head. Might get a tad bit weird but we will see how it goes.