February News

Aug 9 – Fog

Kathryn Scanlan

…in this unusual, finely judged and wrought work, [Kathryn Scanlan] has created beautifully resonant lines of what amounts to prose poetry out of the found diaries of an elderly stranger and in doing so has reminded us of the beauty that can be discovered in the ordinary and in ordinary speech. – Lydia Davis

As quiet as it is evocative, Aug 9 – Fog is a testimony to life as a labour of love, in prose that seems to live and breathe on its own. – Preti Taneja

These Scanlan passages of life – you should take them with you wherever you go. – Vi Khi Nao

Book Works is delighted to announce we will be publishing the UK edition of Kathryn Scanlan’s first novel, Aug 9 – Fog, in May 2025.

Originally published in the US in 2019, it is available here for the first time and can be pre-ordered now at a reduced price of £14.

Twenty years ago Kathryn Scanlan acquired a diary at a public estate auction. It was kept by Cora E. Lacy, an eighty-six-year-old woman living in a small Illinois town, from 1968 to 1972. Scanlan began to compulsively read and reread the stranger’s diary. In the years following she edited, arranged, and rearranged the diarists’ words into the composition that is Aug 9 – Fog.

Kathryn Scanlan is the author, also, of The Dominant Animal and Kick the Latch. Originally from Iowa, she lives in Los Angeles. More here

Special Editions Sale

Celebrate Valentine’s day on our backs with Phyllis Christopher’s fearless and tender photographs, fusing lesbian sex and queer protest against the backdrop of a city in flux – or choose a gift from many other Book Works special editions, all 10% off for February.

All funds raised from sales are invested back into our programme supporting new work by emerging artists and practitioners, so you can treat yourself to a bargain while knowing you’re supporting our work.

Editions include work by Phyllis Christopher, Mark Dion, Stewart Home, Katrina Palmer, Laure Prouvost, Fiona Tan, Mark Titchner and many more!

Featured image On Our Backs Pin-Up, San Francisco, CA, 2003 by Phyllis Christopher.
Digital giclée b&w photograph on Fine Art Smooth 240 gsm paper
203 x 254mm
Edition of 100
Signed and numbered by the artist
Unframed

Book of the Month: I Know Where I’m Going by Michael Bracewell and Linder

Purchase this title

I Know Where I’m Going: A Guide to Morecambe and Heysham by Michael Bracewell and Linder is our February 2025 Book of The Month, with 30% off all month.

A Linder retrospective, Danger Came Smiling, is open at the Hayward Gallery from 11 February–5 May 2025.

I Know Where I’m Going is a collaborative book by writer Michael Bracewell and artist Linder. It functions as a gazetteer for the Heysham and Morecambe coast, once described on a Victorian postcard as ‘The Naples of the North’. Whilst investigating and illustrating how a landscape can recollect its own past with a particular regional intensity, this book is also concerned with how our experience of the future can be discovered through history.

A key section in the book looks at the then semi-derelict Midland Hotel, built overlooking Morecambe Bay and considered to be one of the most important Art Deco buildings in Britain. Constructed in 1933, the ocean-liner shape of Oliver Hill’s breathtaking designs still retain their sense of sleek modernity − its exterior walls were treated with a mixture of carborundum powder and crushed blue glass which was electrically polished so the whiteness of the building literally glittered in the sun. Then there were the guests: Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, the Earl of Derby and Coco Chanel who, as legend has it, flew up from Cap d’Antibes landing her flying boat on Morecambe Bay. I Know Where I’m Going delivers an invaluable and visually demanding insight into the nature of regional studies from two celebrated creative practitioners.

These are first editions, published in 2003 as part of the New Writing series, guest-edited by Michael Bracewell; your chance to grab a future collector’s edition!

Join us at the Artists’ Bookmarket, Edinburgh’s annual celebration of art publishing

Book Works will be in Edinburgh this weekend for the Artists’ Bookmarket at Fruitmarket for Edinburgh’s annual celebration of art publishing. The event runs over two busy weekend days with stalls laid out to showcase a wide array of work. Artists’ Bookmarket is complemented by a busy talks and workshops programme.

More information here

ABOUT US

Book Works is a leading contemporary arts organisation with a unique role as makers and publishers of books.

Established in 1984, we are dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects. Book Works consists of a publishing and commissioning department; and a studio specialising in binding, box-making and multiples.

STUDIO

The Book Works Studio offers a specialist bespoke service for a range of clients, from artists, designers, galleries, and businesses. We provide binding solutions, develop prototypes and specialise in unique book artworks, boxes, and portfolios. We have an extensive archive, and offer tailored educational events, and bookbinding courses. The Studio generates income from clients and is self-sufficient.

PUBLISHING

Book Works Publishing is dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects and include publishing, a lecture and seminar programme, exhibitions, the development of an online archive, and artists’ surgeries and workshops.

Our audience is vital to our work. The process of engaging and developing our audience is initiated with our commissioning programme, and driven through all aspects of our activities, particularly our public programme of events, our workshops, artists’ surgeries and education activities, and through our interest in collaborating with other organisations and libraries. Our programme of commissions is diverse, and reflects our commitment not just to work with cultural workers from all backgrounds, but to invest in networks and programmes that engage, and develop and create new artistic voices.

Recent Commissions

Includes new projects with: Amy Ching-Yan Lam, Sofia Niazi, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Jimmy Robert, Prem Sahib, and Cecilia Vicuña. Our recent Open Submission is Arrhythmia, guest edited by Katrina Palmer, has commissioned new work from Andrew Colarusso, Roy Claire Potter, Kamwangi Njue, and Alice Walter. Katrina Palmer is also the author of The Touch Report, released December 2024.

SUPPORT US

By supporting Book Works you will help support artists and writers at the emerging stage of their careers through our diverse commissioning programme of open submissions, guest editorships, public events, exhibitions and publications.

CHARITY

Book Works is a registered charity, dedicated to advance education for the benefit of the public in the visual arts, particularly books which may be recognised as works of art in their own right.

TRUSTEES

We have a board of trustees who input their range of diverse expertise and interests into our development:

Teresa Drace-Francis (Chair)
Maria Amidu
Nick Brown
Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso
Tess Denman-Cleaver
Aliya Gulamani
Gerrie van Noord

Book Works

19 Holywell Row

London EC2A 4JB

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