A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley
(Goff Books 2013) is an illuminated novel containing 101 books within it, all written by Lehrer’s protagonist who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career.
A LIFE IN BOOKS: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley
(Goff Books 2013) is an illuminated novel containing 101 books within it, all written by Lehrer’s protagonist who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and career.
Nearly a year after the controversial author is thrown into a federal prison for refusing to reveal the name of a confidential source, he decides to break his silence. But it’s not as simple as giving up a name to the grand jury. Over the course of one long night, in the darkness of his prison cell, he whispers his life story into a microcassette recorder, tracing his journey from the public housing project of his youth, to a career as a journalist, then experimental novelist, college professor, husband, father, accidental bestselling author, pop-culture pundit, and unindicted prisoner.
In A LIFE IN BOOKS, Mobley’s autobiography/apologia is paired with a review of all 101 of his books. Each book is represented by its first edition cover design and catalogue copy, and more than a third of his books are excerpted. The resulting retrospective contrasts the published writings (which read like short stories) with the author’s confessional memoir, forming a most unusual portrait of a well-intentioned, obsessively inventive (if ethically challenged) visionary.
Written and designed by acclaimed author/artist Warren Lehrer,
A LIFE IN BOOKS is an extraordinarily original, funny, heartwarming and heart-wrenching exploration of one man’s use of books as a means of understanding himself, the people around him, and a half century of American/global events. Rich with stories that spring from other stories, this genre-defying novel orchestrates a multicultural symphony of characters from Bleu’s life and books: lovers, mothers, children, friends, enemies, teachers, students, runaways, rebels, thinkers, dreamers, believers, skeptics, the displaced and dispossessed. It chronicles the mysteries and contradictions of the creative process, and grapples with the future of the book as a medium, as well as the lines that separate truth, myth, and fiction.
This four-color, full-length novel—containing over 101 hilarious and scrumptious book cover designs (and book-like objects)—fuses art and literature, and distinguishes itself as one of those books you’ll want to hold in your hands, feast your eyes on, read and re-read, share with friends, and treasure for years to come.
BUY THE BOOK!
7.5”x9.75”, 380 pages, 4 color throughout, hardbound, printed on acid free paper.
ISBN 978-1-939621-02-3 Distributed by PGW (Publishers Group West)
A LIFE IN BOOKS is the lead title in the launch of Goff Books, a new imprint of ORO Editions, which features works of Visual Literature, and books on Art, Design, and Popular Culture.
Written, Designed, and Illustrated by Warren Lehrer.
Some illustrations were made in collaboration
with Melina Rodrigo Smyres and Donna Chang.
Jonathon Rosen collaborated on the cover art.
Winner 2015 Best New Fiction, International Book Award (USA Book News)
Winner 2015 Best Cover Design, Fiction, International Book Award
Winner 2015 Wild Card Award, Paris Book Festival
Winner 2014 IPPY (Independent Publisher) OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD for “MOST ORIGINAL CONCEPT.”
“A stunningly unique take on the novel that unabashedly explores the relationship between the narrator and reader, as well as the fragile and often blurry line that distinguishes truth and fiction. With A Life In Books, Lehrer has upended the modern novel form and its narrative limitations, creating a rich and engaging story through visual literature… Mind-blowing… reality bending… a laugh riot and a visual feast.”
Winner 2014 Best New Fiction Award USA Best Books Awards
Winner Next Generation Indie Book Award
Winner Print Magazine Regional Design Award (NYC)
Winner National Indie Book Award
Winner CBAA Exhibition Prize College Book Art Association Bi-Annual Juried Exhibition
Shortlist Sheffield International Artists’ Book Prize
Finalist 2015 Best Interior Design, International Book Awards
Finalist 2014 Best Cover Design, Fiction, USA Best Books Awards
“In A Life In Books, Warren Lehrer has written a profound commentary on this nausea-inducing unique moment in the grand transition from Silly Mind to Machine Mind. Amusingly and smartly enough, he may have helped transition ‘the last great American novel’ to the first ‘great illustrated novel’ which is how novels started. A Life In Books is brilliant, beautiful, delicious for eyes and mind.”
Andrei Codrescu poet, novelist, journalist, public radio commentator
“In Warren Lehrer’s ingenious, one-of-a-kind novel, A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, we see all the covers of all 101 books supposedly written by the narrator over the last several decades… A tour-de-force!”
Kurt Andersen Studio 360
“For anyone who has ever resisted judging a book by its cover, now’s your chance: In A Life In Books, author and graphic design visionary Warren Lehrer crafts a vivid kaleidoscopic odyssey that frames one man’s life through not one, but one hundred different books—and book jackets. In this quirky, yet unmistakably modern evocation of the illuminated manuscript, Lehrer’s book reminds us that we are what we do. And, for that matter, what we publish.”
Jessica Helfand graphic designer, writer, educator, founding editor Design Observer
“A meticulously illustrated chronicle… Lehrer’s 101 cover designs for Mobley’s books are pitch perfect. And like the best film title sequences, which establish moods or introduce plotlines, these fictional covers are vehicles by which Lehrer illuminates Mobley’s tale of success and failure… Lehrer has created a parallel art world”
Steven Heller The Atlantic
“A Life In Books is a book-lover’s fictional treat of books that never were. At first when we look at this extraordinary book, it looks like it’s going to be a funny book, with crazy, zany events. But A Life In Books is ultimately about how the sadness of life is transformed into art. The book is about survival, and how life requires constant adjustment, constant compromise, and the will to find the funny line at which you won’t compromise… By the end, Bleu Mobley is surviving in jail. We understand everything he does step by step because he takes us with him down his path, from the print shop of his junior high where he falls in love with everything about letters and words, to his reinvention as a writer of best sellers in order to support his daughter’s medical expenses, and his ultimate refusal to sell out a confidential source… As Whitman said, ‘I contain multitudes,’ and Bleu Mobley contains 101 books. Wonderful!”
Michael Silverblatt Bookworm, KCRW
“An ingenious first novel filled with over 100 provocative titles all written by Lehrer’s protagonist author who finds himself in prison looking back on his life and work, fictions and realities. Mobley recalls his life growing up in a public housing project in Queens, becoming a journalist, professor, bestselling author, pundit, and finally prisoner for refusing (timely enough) to reveal a confidential source.”
Sam Roberts The New York Times Close Up
“Warren Lehrer has spent a decade writing and designing a book that is way more than a book. A blend of writing and design, which extends to performance art… A Life in Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley is a typographical and design tour de force.”
Ellen Shapiro Print Magazine
“A Life In Books challenges readers to rethink the relations of the novel to the image, and of the whole book to our contemporary world… Lehrer’s acclaimed and influential 1984 book French Fries broke the grid—and possibly the crystal goblet—creating a work in which the design was not mere accessory to story but an integral mode of its performance. In A Life In Books, he continues to make design a constitutive element, telling the story of the fictional author Bleu Mobley through book covers, fonts, supporting documents, illustrations, and a series of concepts for innovative books… While Mobley’s early books are aggressively experimental, his prodigious output spawns bestsellers… thus Mobley becomes something of a microcosm of the commercial publishing industry, its aesthetic and its flaws. In many ways, A Life In Books succeeds beautifully as a hybrid between the graphic novel and the novel… and suggests new potentials for popular literary fiction to break with the older tradition of the illustrated novel by making the images take part fully in telling the story. Lehrer’s book has been winning awards and warm reviews almost everywhere, strongly suggesting that his innovative novel is finding its audience.”
David Banash Eye Magazine
“A tour de force of graphic design, illustration and writing. Exploiting a wide range of illustration styles to delight the eye, Lehrer offers a funny, thought-provoking and refreshing twist on the graphic novel… Guaranteed to bring a smile.”
Ken Carbone Huffington Post
“A Life In Books is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, boldly integrating illustration and typography into its engaging story.”
David Gutowski Largehearted Boy
“In A Life in Books, Lehrer has designed a sort of Chinese puzzle whose myriad ideas, stories and characters—from all parts of the globe—intersect, overlap, and dovetail… [It is] a tale of growing up, marriage, fatherhood, physical incapacity, healing, poverty, financial success, incarceration, and continuous self-reflection. Lehrer is adept at representing our multicultural society, which for him means not a sociological construct but the lives and struggles of real people. Like Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and Ben Katchor, Lehrer participates in the search for fresh and innovative ways to show, as well as tell, his many stories. Astonishing.”
Robert Berlind The Brooklyn Rail
“In the era of cookie-cutter books and rubber-stamped stories, Warren Lehrer’s A Life In Books is fresh, original, idiosyncratic, beautiful, and important.”
Rabih Alameddine novelist and painter, author of Koolaids, The Perv, Hakawati, and I, the Divine
“Warren Lehrer’s invented bibliography is a brilliant, ambitious, and compelling novel… A bold work of the imagination, A Life In Books is an “illuminated novel,” in the sense of Mobley’s memoir being lit up by a retrospective monograph of his work, and so many visual touches that make dipping into the book so much fun. The essential backstory turns out to be about what the future holds for books as material objects. I truly hope this audacious novel gets the attention it so richly deserves.”
Nicholas Basbanes Fine Books & Collections
“Warren Lehrer’s A Life in Books deserves broad recognition. It provides a profound reflection on narrative and the boundaries of truth and fiction, as well as on writing and the status of the book as a medium. It broadens the scope of authorship through its use of beautifully designed covers and well-crafted expressive typography, as well as textually, through a very fluid, readable and witty writing style encompassing many genres, discourses, and invented genres… Its protagonist Bleu Mobley paints a panoramic portrait of America—of humanity—one person at a time, frequently giving voice to ordinary people, to the rejected and disenfranchised… A micro-history of book-making, this book indeed lives up to its title: the life of Mobley is told through the books which illuminate the novel, and the reader is offered a behind-the-scenes look at the artist and the creative process. Lehrer is a book composer, as Bleu Mobley would have it, and his composition is well worth interacting with.”
Kristof Van Gansen Image [&] Narrative
“Warren Lehrer is witty, ingenious, sly, serious, a graphic wizard and literary innovator. His crazily ambitious illuminated novel uses art and artifice to test our assumptions about how life is supposed to be in modern America… So much more than a book, A Life In Books is an experience… at once revealing and mysterious, a commentary on ego, celebrity and American society… It plays like literary jazz: Lehrer’s fingers pumping up and down on the keys, laying down pungent notes, sparkling phrases, lilting tunes about who we are and where we are going.”
Dan Bailes The Vision Thing
“In scope, execution and ambition, A Life In Books is an extraordinary book. Like nothing you’ve ever seen before… There is also a contest, a traveling exhibition with video, and a performance/reading tour…”
Lucy Sisman Wwword
“An entertaining and provocative work that combines text and graphic art in a fascinating way. What attracted me straightaway was the splendor of color: page after page you encounter cover designs invented by Lehrer, along with text that uses at least 60 different typefaces. You can read Lehrer’s book in different ways—I kept going back and forth between the stories within the stories of Bleu Mobley’s work and his confessional. In ‘Riveted in the Word’ a scholar struggles to regain language after a massive stroke; In ‘The Sitter’ a 101-year-old woman, considered by most to have lost her marbles, is still pretty sharp and philosophical. Bleu’s line of book lamps, light up a table and give it a warm literary feeling… Marvelous!”
Pradeep Sebastian The Hindu
“In A Life In Books, Lehrer has kneaded together a memoir, interviews that he ‘conducted’ with his (faux) author protagonist, and a retrospective survey of the author’s 101 books, into one of the most exciting (auto-) biographical novels in recent years… In addition to being a writer, Lehrer reveals himself to be a lover of typography and book design. In A Life In Books he has created and developed a total iterary life, with all its textual and visual details. Truly, he handles the ‘reproductions’—of the book covers, select page interiors, reviews and letters—building them into the text, with unbelievable care. Deservedly, A Life In Books has won numerous prizes for its fascinating story and extraordinary format.”
András Váradi Élet és Irodalomh [leading Hungarian literary and political magazine]
“A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, a gorgeously produced multi-color ‘novel,’ is a brilliant meditation on the state of publishing in the 21st Century. What is truth? What is fiction? Who is ‘me,’ am I my nom de plume, & how can I turn us into a franchise… or maybe even into two?! By the time you reach page 330 with pictures of Bleu’s Book Lamps, you’ll be laughing through your tears… I can’t think of a better gift.”
Tsiviah Huttner Second City Tzivi
“A Life In Books is unique, incredible, affecting, meticulous, the perfect hide-and-seek game, and honestly, one of those works that seems so obvious and fertile as a structure, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been done before. Am I gushing? I just love it. This is an important book.”
Stephen Farrell design innovator, Vas An Opera In Flatland and Toc: A New Media Novel
“The coolest book ever.”
Designers and Books
“A genre-defying night that fuses art and literature, prose and design into a multi-media presentation unlike any other.”
Skylight Books
“Lehrer delivered a dynamic performance based on selected episodes of the life of the “controversial author” Bleu Mobley. The articulation between the script and the projected animations, designed to augment the print version, was carefully choreographed. As a result, Lehrer’s presentation was a compelling experience for the audience.”
Samuel Teixeira Materialidades da Literatura & JAB
“Stories told with humor, pathos, poetry, drama and the absurd…”
Brownstoner Queens
“In his gloriously-illustrated novel A Life in Books, Warren Lehrer delves deep into the odysseys of the mind. Moving seamlessly between reality and fiction, A Life In Books entrances the reader into a wonderous vortex of a life which, for all intents and purposes, actually feels like it may have happened. Despite the fact that the book feels in large part like a comedy, there are profound ideas and thoughts that will linger around in your head; on the state of being a writer in the modern world, the power books have to help us understand ourselves, what can and cannot be trusted as real in literature, who a writer becomes once his ideas spill over into the perspectives of their various characters. A Life in Books will have you laughing in tears and pondering the search for identity and self-understanding through literature. I can do nothing but recommend this book to those looking for philosophy alongside their comedy.”
David Ben Efraim Quick Book Reviews
“The indefatigable hero of Warren Lehrer’s hilarious tour de force, has created 101 books of all shapes, subjects, and genres. Mobley is as complex and idiosyncratic as the range of books he has made, and Lehrer’s extraordinary design reflects his hero’s colorful complexity.”
JAB (Journal of Book Arts)
“Warren Lehrer has built a career collapsing the boundaries that most of us take for granted. Blazing a new path, A Life In Books proves that motion design and literature (among other things) need not be strangers… Creating an “illuminated novel” today could be interpreted as nostalgic, but the hardcover book, enhanced by animations and a multimedia performance is decidedly high-tech, a hyperlink mosaic of multimedia.”
Justin Cone Motionographer
“. . . a beautiful fictional autobiography of an immensely prolific writer. . . A Life In Books is one of the most typographically and graphically impressive books I’ve ever encountered.”
Book Dust Flying
“Hilarious… thrilling… genre-crossing… One of only a handful of makers of the past few decades who have consistently created longer form works claimed by the canon-makers as part of the fledgling field that is sometimes called Artists’ Books, Warren Lehrer’s new ‘illuminated novel’ tells the story of a fictional writer, designer, raconteur, entrepreneur, and eventual prisoner… Mobley’s 101 books form a kind of history of public intellectualism, resonant with people like Buckminster Fuller, William Gaddis and the Oulipo movement. Mobley’s oeuvre and narrative is very funny, of course, but in a sad-but-true kind of way.”
Tate Shaw Afterimage
“A Life In Books is a literary multimedia satirical romp through the last half century of publishing with all its conceits and marketing tricks from ‘Outsourcing Grandma’ to toilet paper poems and a childrens books on capital punishment ‘How Bad People Go Bye Bye.’ Wonderful!”
Edgy Lit Selected Best Books 2013
“A Life In Books is unlike any book I’ve every read before. For anyone who loves books—ALIB is a really interesting look at the life of an author, and how the books that he has written grew out of his life experiences. You will encounter books within A Life In Books that you will wish were real books… An amazing and very beautiful book.”
Michael Kindness Books On The Nightstand
Selected BOOKS WE CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO READ
more videos coming soon!
In his performance/readings, Lehrer presents an overview of Bleu Mobley’s life and work with projections of his book cover designs and other biographical materials including animations and video performances of Mobley book excerpts by the band BETTY, beatbox poet Chesney Snow, actress/poet La Bruja, actress/author Judith Sloan, and others.
A Life In Books presentations are funny, entertaining, and thought provoking. They focus on: the creative process (how life events can influence an artist’s work and vice versa); the future of the book, reading and writing; and the lines that separate truth, myth, and fiction. Whenever possible, Warren likes to engage audiences in a Q&A afterwards, and sign books. In some venues, he combines an A Life In Books performance/reading with an overview presentation of his own 30+ year career as writer and artist. Workshops on Visual Literature for writers and artists are also possible.
2018
November 2, Daylong Event, 24th Annual New Jersey Book Arts Symposium, Rutgers University, Newark. Lehrer will give a talk about his work and present a reading.
October 5-7, &Now Festival of Innovative Writing, Notre Dame University. Off The Page: Collaborations in Visual and Sonic Poetry. With Judith Sloan
April 18, 6pm Pratt Institute A LIFE IN BOOKS performance/lecture Brooklyn, NY. Keynote presentation for Launch of new Book Arts minor at Pratt Institute. Stay tuned for more info.
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2017
October 25, 5pm Carnegie Mellon University A LIFE IN BOOKS performance/lecture Pittsburgh, PA
July 29 Reversing Falls Sanctuary Reading with Judith Sloan Brooksville, ME
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2016
Dec 9, 6:30pm Yale University Art Gallery A LIFE IN BOOKS Performance in conjunction with the exhibition “The Book As Stage: Performance and Theater in the Book Arts”
1111 Chapel St., New Haven, CT 06510
August 6, 7pm Stonington Opera House – Burnt Cove Church Opening for Judith Sloan Stonington, ME
July 9 & 10, 8pm Ko Festival, 25th Anniversary Cabaret Performing Excerpts of A LIFE IN BOOKS Amherst, MA
March 24 University of Texas, Downtown A LIFE IN BOOKS: Bleu Mobley Retrospective Exhibition Opening Reception and Warren Lehrer A LIFE IN BOOKS performance
O’Kane Gallery, Houston, TX
March 31, 9am AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) Conference Panel Presentation/Discussion “Story By Design: Visual Narratives” Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA
April 4, 6-9pm Center for Book Arts Annual Benefit Gala Warren Lehrer 2016 Honoree (along with May Castleberry of MoMA and Peter Kraus of Ursus Books) National Art Club New York City, NY
Stay tuned for other dates – TBA
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2015
Jan 21, 7pm The University of Memphis, Rose Theater Performance/Lecture (21st) & Judging Student Exhibition (22nd) Memphis, TN
Feb 12, 6:30pm The University of Florida Performance/Lecture, Workshop on Feb 13, Gainesville, FL
March 7, 5pm Central Booking Gallery Performance/Reading with Opening Act by Judith Sloan 21 Ludlow St. (LES), NYC
March 13, 12 noon Halifax Central Public Library (sponsored by MSVU, SMU, Dalhousie, NSCADU) Performance/Reading Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
March 27, 2:30pm 2015 &Now Festival – Blast Radius Performing Typographic Literature session with Johanna Drucker, Samantha Gorman & Danny Cannizzaro, Cal Arts, Valencia CA
April 1, 3:30pm San Francisco State University Performance/Lecture San Francisco CA
April 2-5, 2015 University of Minnesota & Minnesota Center for Book Arts Performance/Reading & Workshop Minneapolis, MN
May 21, 6pm Andrew Romay Center for New Immigrants Commencement Speaker Open Society Foundation, New York, NY
July 3, 7:30pm Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Performance/Reading with Judith Sloan Deer Isle, MA
July 23-25 Book Arts Biennial Performance/Reading Minneapolis Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Aug 3, 7pm Sargentville Library Benefit Performance Sargentville Chapel, Sargentville ME
Sept 2, 12:30pm Transforming Trauma: How Art Responds to Urban Violence Panel Discussion Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
Oct 5, 7pm Crossing the BLVD Performance & Panel Discussion with Judith Sloan and Crossing the BLVD participants New York City, NY
Oct 8, 11am AIGA National Conference Panel with other Designer/Author/Educators New Orleans, La
Oct 15, 2pm Susan Bee’s Artists’ Book class Performance/Lecture Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Nov 5, 7pm Central Booking Gallery Performance/Reading 21 Ludlow Street, NYC, NY
Nov 10, 7pm First Tuesdays Reading Series Performance/Reading Terraza Café, 40-19 Gleane Street (off of Roosevelt Ave), Elmhurst, Queens, NY
Jan 7-9 College Book Art Association Conference: Telling the Story Panel Presentation/Discussion Nashville, TN
2014
Jan 3, 3:15pm College Book Art Association Conference Performance/Talk Salt Lake City, UT
Jan 7-8 Teton County LIbrary Lecture/Workshop + Performance Jackson Hole, WY
Jan 30, 4:30pm Neuberger Museum of Art Performance/Reading Purchase College/SUNY, NY
Feb 6, 4:30pm VCU Virginia Commonwealth University Performance/Lecture Richmond, VA
Feb 13, 6pm NYU Bookstore Performance/Reading New York, NY (Snowed out – Rescheduled for April 17)
Feb 22 Scripps College Performance/Lecture + Workshop Claremont, CA
March 14, 8pm LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Performance (resulting from Theater Residency) LIC, Queens, NY
March 26-27 Roger Williams College Performance/Lecture + Workshop Bristol, RI
March 27 AIGA, Providence Performance/Lecture Providence, RI
April 7, 4-6pm Rutgers Performance/Reading + Panel Newark, NJ
April 17, 6pm NYU Bookstore Performance/Reading New York, NY
May 9, 6:30pm Center for Book Arts Performance/Reading New York, NY
July 29, 7pm GSA Summer Speaker Series Performance/Reading Blue Hill, MA
Sept 21, 2pm Brooklyn Book Festival Performance/Reading/Panel Borough Hall, Media Room, Brooklyn NY
Sept 26-28 NY Art Book Fair Exhibiting with Center for Editions, Purchase College, PS1 MoMA, LIC, NY
Sept 29 Bank Square Books Performance/Reading Mystic, CT
Nov 4 Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner Performance/Reading Lower East Side, NYC
Nov 10 NYU, Gallatin School of Individualized Learning Performance/Lecture NYC
Nov 15-19 University of Arizona, Tucson Performance/Lecture & working with creative writing & visual arts students Tucson, AZ
Dec 2, 6pm Visual Studies Workshop, Writers and Books Performance/Reading & Workshop Rochester NY
Dec 3, 7pm SUNY Brockport, Writers Craft Performance/Lecture Brockport, NY
2013 dates
Sept 21, 6-7:30pm NY Art Book Fair Contemporary Artists’ Book Conference Keynote Speaker PS1, MoMA, LIC, NY
Sept 19–21 NY Art Book Fair Exhibitor PS1, MoMA,
LIC, NY
Oct 4, 4pm Quintessential Queens Conference Performance/Reading w/ Judith Sloan Queens College, NY
Oct 11, 7:30pm AIGA National Conference Book Signing Minneapolis Convention Center, MN
Oct 17, 5:15pm SAIC Chicago Art Institute Lecture/Performance and Workshops Chicago, IL
Oct 24, 7pm Boston Art Institute
Lecture/Performance Boston, MA
Nov 1, 7pm The Greene Space @WNYC
BOOK LAUNCH/Performance Reading New York, NY RESERVE A TICKET NOW
Nov 7, 7pm Art Center CollegeLecture/Performance Pasadena, CA
Nov 11, 7:30pm Skylight BooksPresentation & Signing Los Angeles, CA
Nov 12, 7:30pm The Booksmith BookstorePresentation & Signing San Francisco, CA
Nov 13, 7pm Book Passage Bookstore Performance/Reading Corte Madera, CA
Nov 23 Miami Book Fair, Performance/Reading Miami, FL
Dec 6, 7pm Queens Council On The Arts Performance/Reading Astoria, NY
In addition to the book covers, and catalogue descriptions, A LIFE IN BOOKS includes thirty-four excerpts that run anywhere from one to nine pages. Some early readers of A LIFE IN BOOKS have stated a desire for many of these excerpts to keeping going.
To answer this call, we’ve decided—in the tradition of Bleu Mobley’s own ‘team writing’ process—to ask readers to help complete some of Bleu’s books via a writing contest/crowd-source project.
We decided to begin this interactive reading and writing experiment with Bleu Mobley’s first short story collection, Spit Sonata.
The Spit Sonata Catalogue description:
Bleu Mobley’s first collection of short stories features interior monologues of people in very high places, including: Alexandria atop her fire-watch tower on Lookout Point, Rafael the roofer reslating a four-story Victorian, Frankie the phone guy up a pole in the Poconos, Vladimir the cosmonaut on rotation in his Soviet space station, and Corrie doing a tree-house sit-in to save the forest on Turtleneck Hill. In all, Spit Sonata portrays a dozen elevated yet down-to-earth perspectives on family, work, “progress,” and the phases of life.
1986, Terra Firma Books, Providence, RI
Contestants are asked to read the one excerpted story printed in A Life In Books, “Vigil On Turtleneck Hill,” and then write and submit one of the short stories/interior narratives described in the catalog description. (The tree-house sitter is already written. Consider the brief catalogue description of four other stories as prompts. Seven other stories are completely wide open except that they need to be written from the vantage point of someone in “a very high place.” Spit Sonata came out in 1986, so be mindful of the time period and the kinds of technologies that were and weren’t being used then.
Professional, amateur, and aspiring writers, teachers, students, creative writing classes, college freshman writing classes, readers who don’t even think of themselves as writers but were/are curious about the parts of Bleu Mobley’s books that are not excerpted in A Life In Books are invited and encouraged to give this a try.
Once Spit Sonata is completed, it will be published as an ebook. If your contribution is selected for inclusion, your name will be listed in the writing credits of the ebook, and posted on this website along with your excerpt. You will also receive an Official BLEU MOBLEY WRITING TEAM CERTIFICATE, as well as an 8”x10” inkjet print of the Bleu Mobley book cover (or image of a Bleu Mobley book-like object) of your choice—printed on 100% rag paper, and signed by Warren Lehrer.
Inquire About THE CONTEST / SEND YOUR SUBMISSION
Testimonials about CROSSING the BLVD as a learning tool
“Throughout the unit, I was struck by how the students talked in terms of people—real, live, and close to home—rather than of characters or images… Moreover, through Crossing the BLVD, Maine students discovered the diversity within Maine and within their own families… researching family names, interviewing relatives, and exploring their own border crossings—with exciting outcomes… The book, CD, and exhibition are an enormous inspiration and model for how storytelling and dialogue can transform persons and relations among people.”
Kristin M. Langellier, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine
“Using Crossing the BLVD in our College Writing classes and Freshman Seminar has had a wonderful, transformative effect. My students have said that no single book they have ever read has made them go out and learn about “politics in the world” more than BLVD. They are attracted by its visually lovely flash look, but they are moved by the incredible writing and stories… If you are looking for a way to bring international issues into your classroom, this is a great entry. You can use it for conflict narratives. It also works very well in research units.”
Kathleen McCormick, Professor of Literature and Pedagogy, Director of Writing, Purchase College, SUNY
“As a Common Reader and teaching tool, Crossing the BLVD brings a fascinatingly broad and affecting human perspective to contemporary debates over immigration, assimilation and exclusion in the United States. Impressive for its comprehensive research, Crossing offers a unique, multi-voiced ethnographic analysis of Queens, New York, and dramatically illustrates ongoing and competing notions of what it means to be American. Crossing presents the immigrant center of Queens as seemingly chaotic microcosm for America, a place of unexpected bedfellows, unusual crossings, and in-between spaces that symbolize the nation, simultaneously reinforcing and challenging our evolving definitions of American identity. I heartily recommend the inclusion of this text in the classroom. And when Warren and Judith came to perform and talk to the students, the stories came to life again, and no one, students and faculty alike, will ever forget the experience. Rex Nielson, Ph.D, Bryant University, Literary and Cultural Studies
“Crossing the BLVD is a paradigmatic American studies text. It is an innovatively designed, beautiful, moving, funny, stimulating, horrifying, and illuminating book.”
Kirstin Swinth, American Quarterly, Chair, History Deptartment, Fordham University
“Crossing the BLVD defies the caricature of migrant ethnicity perpetuated in popular culture… It juxtaposes the lived complexity of the ways in which various (new and old) immigrant communities coexist, and how they encounter the “mainstream” and vice versa… helping the reader see that the man who drives the taxi may in fact be a poet…”
Mita Banerjee, Ph.D, The IntraNation Project, Emily Carr Institute
“Crossing the BLVD is more evocative and provocative than any instructional video I’ve seen and far less expensive. It serves as a model for what you could do in your community, organization or institution.”
Managing Diversity Magazine Harris Sussman
“A vibrant and inspiring collection of stories from immigrants… For people who have so often been otherized, stereotyped, and misrepresented, Crossing is an exercise in authenticity… The graphic style and approach to potraiture is revolutionary for the field, and the sheer volume and range of subjects, rare… Visionary!”
The Oral History Review Courtney E. Martin
“I’ve been working with refugees and immigrants as a cultural producer for twenty years, and Crossing the BLVD is simply the best project/book representing the real life experiences of immigrants in the new America.”
James Bau Graves, Director, Center for Cultural Exchange
“This stunningly innovative book goes beyond pathos, into the kaleidoscope of experience that defines real immigrant life, in all its complexity…” City Limits Debbie Nathan
“Crossing the BLVD collects the searing first-person stories of 79 Queens residents, recent immigrants from everywhere… The effect is dazzling but organic and appropriate. . . as vibrant as a live event. Strongly recommended for public and academic collections.” Library Journal Janet Ingraham Dwyer
“Spellbinding first-person narratives of people who hail from every imaginable point on the globe… The book has special interest to those of us in health care because recent immigrants bring special problems to medical practice… (How often is a question about torture part of our Review of Systems?) A book like BLVD can help us meet the needs of this special population by using both creativity and compassion.” The Permanente Journal Dr. Eric Schuman
“Crossing The BLVD reveals the impact of changes in immigration law through the oral histories of asylum seekers caught in mandatory detention, refugees fleeing war and persecution, and those pushed out of their countries struggling to re-create their lives. The significance of this extraordinary volume is that, ready or not, it provides a glimpse of the new America which is emerging.” Ron Daniels, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
A LIFE IN BOOKS can be used as a resource for teachers and students in a variety of ways.
Foremost, A LIFE IN BOOKS can be used as a springboard for ideas in Creative Writing, College Freshman Writing, Writing for Artists, Writing for Designers, Graphic Design, Illustration, Fiction Writing, Short Story Writing, Ethics, Semiotics, and Critical Issues (in Contemporary Literature and Art) classes, as well as for workshops in Unleashing Creativity, or any of the above subjects.
Warren Lehrer’s last book, Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America (written with Judith Sloan), is being used as a text and common reader in colleges, high schools, ESL and other programs. Crossing the BLVD is a work of non-fiction that focuses on the human dimension of the new immigrant and refugee experience in the United States. A LIFE IN BOOKS approaches similar themes through illuminated fiction, while also exploring the creative process itself.
With the help of a STUDY GUIDE, students can use A LIFE IN BOOKS as a point of departure to generate their own book ideas, titles, catalog copy, cover designs, and book excerpts. By developing book ideas laterally, writing titles, catalog copy, and then excerpts (of short story length), students build confidence incrementally, leading them up to more long form writing. Students are encouraged to draw on their own experiences, as well as venture into subjects, places, and characters they are not as familiar with. Appropriate for beginning, intermediate, advanced liberal arts and studio arts students. Art and design students can develop their writing skills in conjunction with designing content they have written themselves. Students in Interdisciplinary classes and/or simultaneous sections of Writing and Design/Illustration or Art of The Book classes can collaborate on developing book ideas and writing/designing a (printed and/or electronic) book from beginning to end. Classes could also choose to participate in our Writing Contest, or select a particular Bleu Mobley title of their choosing to complete as a class or interdisciplinary set of classes (as is being done as a pilot program at Rutgers University, Spring 2014).
As a text, A LIFE IN BOOKS will stimulate thought and discussion about the relationship between an artist/writer and the work they produce. The novel balances satire with complex character portrayals, while tackling serious issues like mental illness, living with disabilities, war and peace, death and dying, interracial marriage/living in diverse communities, remaining true to one’s ideals/selling out, and the future of the book—all potential discussion points. Ethical dilemmas are raised throughout A LIFE IN BOOKS, as is the quest for freedom and the prospect of sacrificing freedom(s) for a greater cause.
The videos, text excerpts not included in the printed edition, interviews, articles, and other supplemental materials can also be used to study and discuss A LIFE IN BOOKS, and serve as an example of how creative writing can manifest itself (in other media) beyond the confines of a book.
Warren Lehrer has been teaching writing and design for over two decades (in the Designer As Author Graduate Program at SVA in NYC, and in the School of Art+Design at SUNY Purchase), and is available for residencies, workshops, and performance/readings in conjunction with classroom use of the book. The traveling exhibition can also serve as a resource for classes who are using the book.
Contact us for further information about using A LIFE IN BOOKS as a learning tool.
A Life in Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley traveling exhibition includes all “first edition” cover designs of Bleu Mobley’s 101+ books accompanied by catalogue descriptions. It also includes “reproductions” of Mobley’s book-like objects including the illuminated book lamps, the book toys, poetry toilet paper roll, book clothing and accessories, and the Flying Book Project. In addition to the mounted prints, there is video: animations of pop-up books, ‘ad spots’ for Bleu Mobley books/projects, and videotaped performances of actors, musicians, and performers bringing Bleu Mobley excerpts to life. And of course, copies of the book are also on display.
This exhibition is designed to travel easily and inexpensively. It fits into a few boxes, ships at a reasonable cost, and is relatively easy to install. The art and text panels are archival inkjet prints mounted onto sintra board, with mounts on the back. The exhibition is ideal for university galleries and museums, art, design, and literary centers, libraries and bookstores with exhibition areas.
This funny, thought-provoking and beautiful exhibition tells the story of a [fictional] writer/artist through a chronological overview of his life’s work while reflecting on fifty years of American/global events, the publishing industry/the future of the book, and the creative process. There are two editions of this exhibition, so it can be on view at two locations simultaneously. The exhibit is also an excellent companion to using the book as a learning tool, and is a good example of approaching stortelling through a variety of media. The Crossing the BLVD exhibit connected to that book/project worked in this well, to great effect, and traveled to 15 locations including museums, galleries, and universities in New York, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, Utah, and Ohio.
Warren Lehrer is a writer and artist/designer known as a pioneer in the fields of visual literature and design authorship. His books, acclaimed for capturing the shape of thought and reuniting the traditions of storytelling with the printed page, include: Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America (with Judith Sloan); The Portrait Series: a quartet of men (four-book suite); GRRRHHHH: a study of social patterns (with Dennis Bernstein and Sandra Brownlee); French Fries (with Bernstein); i mean you know; and versations. He has received many awards for his books and multimedia projects including: the Brendan Gill Prize, the Innovative Use of Archives Award, three AIGA Book Awards, two Type Director’s Club Awards, the International Book Design Award, a Media That Matters Award, a New York Book Show Best of the Best Award, and a Prix Arts Electronica Award. He’s received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council and Foundation for the Arts, and the Rockefeller, Ford, Greenwall, and Furthermore Foundations. His work has been exhibited widely and is in many collections inclu-ding MoMA, L.A. County Art Museum, The Getty Museum,Georges Pompidou Centre, and Tate Gallery. Lehrer is also a performer, and has co-written four plays, one opera, co-composed two audio CDs, and he co-produces public radio documentaries and audio works with his wife Judith Sloan. He is a frequent lecturer and presenter at universities, art and literary centers, and book stores throughout the United States and internationally. Lehrer is a professor at the School of Art+Design at Purchase College, SUNY, and a founding faculty member of the Designer As Author grad program at the School of Visual Arts. Together with Sloan, Lehrer founded EarSay, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to uncovering and portraying the lives of the uncelebrated in print, on stage, on the radio, in exhibitions, concert halls, electronic media, and through educational programs in public schools, community centers, and prisons.
A Life In Books is his first novel.
“In Lehrer’s books, words take on thought’s very form, bringing sensory experience to the reader as directly as ink on paper can allow… [Once] considered too far ahead of his time… Now the times are beginning to catch up to him.”
The New York Times Book Review Julie Lasky
“In Warren Lehrer’s extraordinary books, full of typographic innovation, he seeks to trap thought, sound and speech in time and space on the printed page. The result is theater… The reader (viewer/listener) experiences the pathos within the mundane aspects of everyday life… reality, fantasy, along with art and literature, travel parallel but inseparable roads..”
Print Magazine Philip Meggs
Winner 2004 Brendan Gill Prize “A celebratory chronicle of the immigrant experience in New York, Crossing the BLVD is a Whitmanesque book that reveals a staggering array of humanity… [It] chronicles life in Gotham in both its despair and boundless promise…”
“Books such as French Fries [1984] challenge readers to explore the act of reading; to break with the usual linear pattern, vary the pace, look back on earlier passages, or skip ahead. Lehrer’s typographic experiemnts anticipated new directions in 1990s graphic design. With his ‘Portrait Series’ published in 1995… he showed how ‘visual literature’ could be used to engage broader audiences… Lehrer’s books evoke the subjective experience of their subjects with great particularity and vividness, suggesting the possibility of a new literary genre that makes full use of design’s rhetorical dimension.” Frieze Magazine Rick Poynor
“Immigrant life in Queens, as told in the intimate, rich, comic, ironic and sad stories so often seen but not heard in America’s big cities… The first-person narratives are engaging… The stories are so different, and yet many of the immigrants’ lives are so similar… What links them all is the desperation and desire that brought them here. As one immigrant says in Crossing the BLVD, “America can do without you, but you can’t do without America.”
The Washington Post Lynn Duke
“Lehrer’s books defy conventional notions of writing and bookmaking… Collectively [the subjects of The Portrait Series] make up a riveting group of eccentrics… Their stories echo in your mind long after the sound of them has ceased…” The Chronicle of Higher Education Zoe Ingalls
“With first-person accounts from 79 immigrants in Queens, the 400-page book is an offbeat ethnic tour of one of the country’s most ethnically diverse counties. It does not point out trendy kebab palaces or obscure taco stands, but rather tells riveting stories about a new wave of immigrants to America… ”
The New York Times Corey Kilgannon
“One of the most imaginative and ambitious book artists’ of our time.”
American Book Review Richard Kostelantetz
“Lehrer pioneered what might be best termed “typographic performance” in his 1984 book/play French Fries, a hot type cacophony of word and image that is today considered by historians one of the lynchpins of the deconstructionist era in graphic design… An astute urban sociological study (Margaret Mead meets Jane Jacobs), more importantly Crossing the BLVD highlights the richness (as well as a little darkness) of a poly-cultural critical mass representing the sights and sounds, customs and mores of ‘new’ New York. It is eloquent, poignant, and smartly designed… an entirely satsifying piece of design and authorship.
Eye Magazine Steve Heller
Winner 2003 Innovative Use of Archives Award
“We honor Crossing the BLVD for exploding the paradigms of oral history and reinterpreting them for our multimedia century… for its boldness and creativity as it charts a lasting record of this vibrant, diverse community in New York City – the new Ellis Island.”
“Lehrer’s intriguing books are studies in human dialogue and the poetics of communication… Translating the spoken word into the visual word is not new. It is rooted in several historical experiments and Lehrer has ingeniously extended earlier efforts by exploring the most subtle nuances of the genre… His defiance of rules and established traditions has led him to new and adventurous modes of typographic expression and communication…”
American Typography Today: 24 American Typographic Designers Rob Carter
Selected One of the Best Illustrated Books of 2003
“Innovatively brings to life the most diverse county in the country… A poetic, arresting, vividly printed mosaic.” Publishers Weekly
“The navigational complexity of bookspace has rarely been more thoroughly or deliberately designed than in the work of Lehrer. Part score, part exhibitionary artifact, Crossing’s execution is almost staggering…” Afterimage Johanna Drucker
Selected One of the Best Books/CDs of Independent Culture 2004
“Crossing the BLVD is a one-of-a kind amazingly designed book… portraits of immigrant Americans, images of their belongings, maps, and innovative typography combine to bring these lives up off the page… ” The Utne Reader
“Unlike many books of oral stories which fall flat on the printed page, Brother Blue: a narrative portrait is so alive, so vibrant, that at times I was sure I was hearing the voice of this remarkable storyteller/philosopher… Absolutely Delightful! The Bloomsbury Review Shanta Nurulla
Crossing the BLVD Book and CD featured as a “Global Hit”
“An incredible and moving story… Sloan and Lehrer spent three years talking to immigrants and refugees in Queens, traveling the world, in a sense, while never leaving their backyard… a place where new immigrants from every corner of the globe come to start their lives in America. The result is a unique multi-media project. Oral History with a twist!” The World, PRI/BBC Marco Werman
The animated video Globalization: Preventing the Sameness of the World is the latest manifestation of the award-winning project which also includes a book (W.W. Norton), an audio CD, performance, and traveling exhibition that has already been to 14 museums and galleries around the country… Lehrer and Sloan defy categorization. In the spirit of Eugene Hütz’ words, their work like Gogol Bordello’s mutates the tradition and keeps it alive.” The Huffington Post Anthony Papa
“This stunningly innovative book goes beyond pathos and into the kaleidoscope of experience that defines real immigrant life, in all of its complexity… The cumulative effect is that going through this book does not feel like dodging deadly traffic on mean streets. It’s more akin to stepping off the Queens’ Number 7 train on a sunny Saturday. Crossing the BLVD lets you listen and browse and understand.” City Limits Debbie Nathan
“Lehrer is a 21st century oral history, new journalism mastermind. Studs Terkel in cyberspace. More visceral than most biographies, The Portrait Series is an extraordinary set of books that allows you to physically hold the subjects in your hand as you read their eccentric, strange,
dangerous and amazing stories.” City In Exile Matthew Finch
“Crossing the BLVD is a fascinating book… Five years ago documentary artists Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan decided to see the world. They didn’t have to go far. They stepped outside their Queens apartment, got into their battered, used Subaru that Lehrer says “was the color of dirt” and drove around Queens for three years. The result is this marvelous, bustling 400 page book.” New York Newsday Dennis Duggan
“Without a discernible grid, the typography in Warren Lehrer’s French Fries flows freely across the pages, intersperced with images and marks evoking the ambiance and mood of the situation. Except for the work of the famous French designer Robert Massin, I had never seen an approach to typography quite like this before. And unlike the work of Massin, which was in French, I could actually read this. I could experience the relationship between the text and its visualization, and I saw how effective it could be. Somewhere between seeing the books of Edward Rusha and Warren Lehrer’s French Fries, I discovered that my options as a graphic designer had expanded by tenfold.” Emigre Magazine Rudy Vandlans
“In the new typographical and geographical adventure Crossing the BLVD… immigrants from all over the world tell their harrowing, thrilling, inspiring stories… Collected in this gripping new book, filled with photos and maps and portraits. The text jumps and continually changes clothes and sizes…because that’s how people talk. Especially when their tales are worth hearing.” New Haven Advocate Paul Bass
“The arrival of the first set of Warren Lehrer’s Portrait Series is something of an event… echoes of Henry Miller… vivid evocations of family life and history. Absolutely defining and unmistakable.” JAB (Journal of Artists’ Books) Paul Zelevansky
“In the spirit of Jacob Riis and others who powerfully and enduringly depicted immigrant life on the Lower East Side in the early part of the 20th century, Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan tell the stories of new immigrants in Queens… Their new book, Crossing the BLVD… has an immediacy and rich depth to it, reflecting the diversity of the most ethnically varied county in the country… Not like other volumes about ethnic New York: It is not a guidebook to neighborhoods nor a sourcebook for ethnic shops and restaurants; rather, its focus is on immigrants’ lives… The book’s distinctive layout—with color photographs, visual artifacts and blocks of text in different sizes and typefaces, conveying different voices—has the feeling of an open conversation…” Jewish Week Sandee Brawarsky
“French Fries (1984) anticipates many of the design techniques later made possible by computer technology…. This high watermark in the preparation of art for offset printing pales in comparison to its design—to its imaginative uses of typefaces, scale, signs, symbols, and images to convey a nonlinear drama of everyday life. The spatial syntax of this remarkable tour de force is complex, uninhibited, and unconstrained by the norms of page design.” U.S. Design 1975-2000, American Craft Museum Catalogue Phil Meggs/R. Craig Miller
“I opened Crossing the BLVD with the intention to browse and read a few stories, but was captured by its variety and detail… Untold stories of escape, separation, longing, brutality and deceit are simply reported here. The authors are sensitive to the language as spoken… The material presented is rich and complex… [Crossing the BlVD is] a bold and graphic book that makes visible people who might otherwise remain relatively invisible and ‘other’.” Visible Language
“Each book in The Portrait Series is a vibrant visual and narrative biography of an eccentric, prismatic and resilient personality… Riveting! Lehrer defies categorization.” Gannet Newspapers Linda Kaplan Wagner
“Behind the drab storefronts and nondescript homes that define the borough, Sloan and Lehrer discover a soulful place teaming with immigrants from Mexico to Australia whose stories unfold in a kaleidoscope of color…” CNN
“Perhaps the biggest leap came (in my life as a book collector) when attracted by a four line description in a catalogue, I ordered a copy of Dennis Bernstein’s and Warren Lehrer’s FRENCH FRIES) … Never had I seen a book like it, nor have I since… Each page is a riot of homespun wisdom and raucous exchanges, overlapping life’s daily events… FRENCH FRIES has also been my wisest investment, as I have watched the book increase tenfold in value…” Bookworks Rose M. Glennon
“I have never seen a book like this. Crossing the BLVD is a remarkably beautiful, lovingly put together example of bottom-up journalism.” Democracy Now! Amy Goodman, Anchor and Executive Producer
“Lehrer creates a rich soundscape in the reader’s imagination… correlating the rhythm of language to the way the mind works… His books explore the rich dissonance of sound and life surrounding each of us… challenging the line between life and art…” Afterimage Nancy Soloman
“I’ve been interviewing authors and doing books for 24 years, and I can tell you, Crossing the BLVD is one of the best books I’ve ever read! It’s so innovative, so rich, so fabulous. The book is beautifully designed. It’s like a work of performance art. Thank you, thank you, thank you [Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan] for putting this book into the world and giving a voice to these people. ” The Faith Middleton Show, Faith Middleton, Connecticut Public Radio
“Crossing the BLVD is a love poem to our diversity. Celebrated emblems of hard work and innovation, anthropological artists’ Lehrer and Sloan compiled these stories from across the globe right here on Queens BLVD and by extension, through the rest of the city. The stories are so compelling, it brings tears to your eyes at points. You will hear yourself somewhere, sooner or later in here…” Wake Up Call, WBAI Robert Knight
“Crossing boldly carries the tradition of oral history into the 21st Century… electrifying collage of voices, faces, and spirits, capturing the true elasticity and inclusiveness of American culture.” Eve Ensler, author, oral historian, performer The Vagina Monologues
“FRENCH FRIES is a delicious, outrageous, funny, funky, sad, sometimes lyrical, warm weird, mad, off the wall, on target, right on the mark, crazy, digestible, hilarious, word-laden book. I loved it.” Collette Inez, writer
“A book of stunning originality, tremendous visual flair and cinematic depth, Crossing the BLVD will forever change the way we think about our cities, our communities, our neighborhoods, our neighbors, and ultimately, our own backyards. It’s as if we’ve all been invited to an enormous block party, where Lehrer and Sloan have personally introduced us to some of their most fascinating neighbors. By the end of the book, strangers somehow feel like friends, and the boulevard feels a lot like home.” Alan Berliner, filmmaker & media artist
“Crossing brims over with the energy, heart and spirit that went into creating this important work. A fitting tribute to the world it so lovingly documents.” Dave Isay, documentary public radio artist, recipient of a MacArthur Genius Fellowship
“Versations resounds, echoes, and repeats in loud and soft — You almost cannot ever be the same once you’ve touched, felt and sensed this book… Do not miss this book. It touches, it should be touched.” Umbrella Judith Hoffberg
“Lehrer’s magnum opus GRRRHHHH: a study of social patterns is the first book to really convince me that computer imagemaking has come of age… Don’t most of us, at one time or another, feel the impulse to invent a basic mythology or a new language? How many books in every generation take it from the beginning and set out to replace Eden? GRRRHHHH, Lehrer’s latest participatory read, attempts no less…” Fine Print Betsy Davids
“Versations is one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed books of the past decade…” Pharos Mathew Jennett
“The tastiest book this season and for seasons to come, French Fries, Warren Lehrer’s latest tour de force is a remarkable accomplishment. Each page becomes theater and you
are the voyeur…” High Performance Magazine Judith Hoffberg
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