Pretty Powerful

Chip Kidd

by Veronique Vienne
Yale University Press, 112 pp., $19.95 (paper)
Holy treasure trove, Batman, it's the latest volume in the Monographics series from Yale University Press! This one showcases the book-cover designs of Chip Kidd, as presented by Veronique Vienne in page after glossy page of full-color splendor.

You know Kidd's work even if you don't know you know, because you don't have to be a graphic design aficionado to recognize the silhouetted Tyrannosaurus rex from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park or the three-volume horizontal splits of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. From the ridiculous to the sublime, you might say, and this collection covers all points between: Kidd's collaborations with photographer Geoff Spear for books by Haruki Murakami and John Updike, the purely typographic treatments on Martin Amis' The Information and Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, and so many others that it's almost boggling to contemplate this level of quality at this amount of quantity. Vienne's introduction tracks both the work itself and Kidd-as-pop-phenom, providing insight into how the designer's growing celebrity affected his years on the design team at Knopf and beyond. There are also little snippets of information to accompany each displayed cover: too-little snippets, in fact. Since lengthier text wouldn't overwhelm the images, since such brevity is unnecessary for graphic balance here, why not provide greater depth of consideration about what's dazzling our eyes? How about those thousand words that each of these pictures is worth? But that's just text. The book exists mostly to show what Kidd can do, and designer Brad Yendle has arranged the material in a way that doesn't pale in comparison with the subject's own skills. Lucky for us and our coffee tables. -- Wayne Alan Brenner

Retro Romance: Classic Tips for Today's Couple

by Cheryl and Joe Homme
Collectors Press, 128 pp., $16.95
Cheryl and Joe Homme could help you make the yuletide gay. When the perfect hot toddy isn't enough to impress those demanding dinner guests, you have to romance them. Listen to a crackly LP and watch your holiday visitors moisten their ruby-red lips. Retro Romance is the perfect complement to those imitation Betty Page coasters you got at Urban Outfitters: a little something to bathe nostalgically in the wistful glow of your newest thrift store lamp. Your coffee table doesn't have to be a graveyard monument to love's ruin in this Information Age. After replacing the contemporary journalistic smut and wiping away any sticky newsprint relevance lingering in the wet spots, you'll soon see that chivalry does not have to be dead. If you decide to read Retro Romance instead of cutting out its art to make collages for your rockabilly friends, you'll find that the Homme manual for the modern lover ain't no Kama Sutra. When cell phones and computers have given you your last lonely night, consult the Hommes for wholesome, old-fashioned advice on saying thank you, cooking for him, and just letting her know you care. Keep an eye out for true romance testimonies by people like Chet, Barry, Bonnie, and Claire. Ask not what your spouse can do for you, but what you can do for your spouse. And always remember that "there are gender-based jokes that are funny without humiliating the sex they lampoon." After all, vintage isn't just about being in, it's about being in love! -- Courtney Fitzgerald

Along Martin Luther King: Travels on Black America's Main Street

by Jonathan Tilove, photography Michael Falco
Random House, 240 pp., $29.95
A street is where stuff happens. Before the days of subdivisions, of Sunny Circles and Pleasant Lanes, cities named thoroughfares for what actually transpired between their curbs and on their sidewalks. That is, there is an East Martin Luther King. But ask a UT freshman where Austin's MLK Boulevard leads, and he'll take you down a short, steep hill to play Frisbee golf at Pease Park. That part of town on the other side of the interstate -- the neighborhood where the street is the longest -- is often unexplored, although its name travels. After walking a two-year freedom trail of MLK avenues from Texas to California, writer Jonathan Tilove and photographer Michael Falco have turned their six-part newspaper series into Along Martin Luther King, a great American biography in rich, honest color. Whether Falco and Tilove describe the James Byrd funeral in Jasper or the execution of Wanda Jean Allen and her home at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in Oklahoma City, they are on the same road. The 650 Martin Luther Kings explored by the pair share experiences of irony and cultural triumph -- unities infused with the differences that happen across state lines but recur at the same street corners. "About the only thing that all black folk in America have in common is contending with being black in America," says Tilove. "That turns out to be enough." Along Martin Luther King underscores vibrantly the vital reasons why the Broadway of Blackness is in Harlem and why we'll probably never see an MLK in West Lake. -- Courtney Fitzgerald

The Scots: A Photohistory

by Murray MacKinnon and Richard Oram
Thames and Hudson, 224 pp., $40
The Scots features sepia-toned photos in a coffee table-sized hardcover. It depicts the livelihood of the Scots from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Presented in sections such as People, Places, Work and Industry, and Sport and Leisure, these photos document many aspects of Scottish life. According to this book, labor and leisure invoke similar emotions in the Scottish visage -- the expressions of the women and men cutting peat are difficult to discern from those of the cycling team who are said to "glow with physical and moral health." The beauty of the photographs rival interest with their stoic subjects by way of lighting and textural contrasts. One visually gripping juxtaposition is that of a "soot-blackened chimney-sweep beside a dust-whitened quarryman." This book will be coveted by those who take interest in either the Scottish culture or in early documentary photography. -- Kate Cantrill

(Other) Best Wishes

The Early Stories: 1953-1975
by John Updike
Knopf, 838 pp., $35
The WASP master at his most New Yorker-y, and with introductory remarks regretful of the terms Negro and fairy. Re-collects the out-of-print Olinger Stories, while re-establishing Updike (again) as the fiery voice of the comfortable. Still, the preternatural talent within shames most contemporary fictioners of any stripe, and you know this.

In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot
by Graham Roumieu
Manic D Press, 41 pp., $12.95
More than a novelty, an artful, exciting, and witty look at a larger-than-life character.

Tiny Giants
by Nate Powell
Soft Skull, 200 pp., $15 (paper)
Mournful Midwestern anthology by (formerly) underground comic author/artist with Frank Miller's blessing.

My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable
by David Rees
Riverhead, 62 pp., $10 (paper)
The follow-up to Get Your War On, and funny in a different way.

Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales
collected by Laura Gonzenbach, edited by Jack Zipes
Routledge, 364 pp., $30
Latin American Folktales: Stories From Hispanic and Indian Traditions
edited by John Bierhorst
Pantheon, 386 pp., $17 (paper)
For kids and the intellectually curious.

The Pythons
by Graham Chapman et al.
Thomas Dunne, 368 pp., $60
A gorgeous volume stacked with reminiscences, stills, and stories. At times earnest and moving, at times all the things about the troupe we hold dear.

I Promise to Be Good: The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud, Volume II
edited by Wyatt Mason
Modern Library, 364 pp., $24.95
Every young creative's favorite poet is more alive than ever.

Pariah: The Complete Award-Winning Serial Novel
by Charles Romalotti
Layman Books, 376 pp., $15
Local self-published author makes good with Rash, Talon, and The Stickler all in one horrifying place.

-- Shawn Badgley