A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley - Hardcover

Lehrer, Warren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 193962102X ISBN 13: 9781939621023

Publisher: Goff Books, 2013

Synopsis

A Life in Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley 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, 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 (but ethically challenged) visionary. Written and designed by award-winning author/artist Warren Lehrer, A Life in Books is an extraordinarily original, funny, heartwarming and heartwrenching exploration of one man's use of books as a means of understanding himself, the people around him, and a halfcentury 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 celebrates the mysteries and contradictions of the creative process, and grapples with the future of the book as a medium, and the lines that separate truth, myth, and fiction. This four-colour, full-length novel containing over 101 hilarious and scrumptious book cover designs (and booklike 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.

Winner of the 2014 Independent Publisher's IPPY Outstanding Book of the Year - 'Most Original Concept'

About this title

Review

"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, public radio commentator, editor Exquisite Corpse, novelist, poet

"In Warren Lehrer's ingenious, one-of-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, founding editor Design Observer, graphic designer, writer, educator

"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. By no means a portfolio; Lehrer has created a parallel art world"
Steven Heller, The Atlantic

"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, The Huffington Post

"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

"Warren Lehrer's novel A Life In Books is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, boldly integrating illustration and typography into its engaging story."
David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy

"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, I, the Divine, The Perv, Hakawati

"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

"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

"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 through a very fluid, readable and witty writing style encompassing many genres, discourses, and invented genres... Its protagonist 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

"A Life in Books: The Rise & Fall of Blue 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, and 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

"In scope, execution and ambition, A Life In Books is an extraordinary book. Like a monk's painstaking production of an illuminated manuscript, it took Lehrer seven years to pull off. There's also a contest, a travelling exhibition with video, and a performance/reading tour... Lehrer's books are like nothing you've ever seen before."
Lucy Sisman, Wwword

"The coolest book ever." Designers and Books

"Stories told with humor, pathos, poetry, drama and the absurd..." Brownstoner Queens

"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
Awards

"A genre-defying night that fuses art and literature, prose and design into a multi-media presentation unlike any other." Skylight Books

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. Mindblowing... reality bending... a laugh riot and visual feast."

WINNER 2015 Best New Fiction (International Book Award)
WINNER 2015 Wild Card Award (Paris Book Festival)
WINNER 2014 Best New Fiction Award (USA Best Books)
WINNER Print Magazine Regional Design Award
WINNER Next Generation Indie Book Award
WINNER National Indie Book Award
WINNER CBAA Exhibition Prize

Winner of the 2014 IPPY OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD (Independent Publishing Awards) in the category of "Most Original Concept."

About the Author

Written and designed by award-winning 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Goff Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 193962102X
• ISBN 13: 9781939621023
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 380