A Year In Retro: 50 most popular posts of 2020 Posted on
A Year In Retro: 50 most popular posts of 2020
Note all articles are independently researched and written by myself. However, if you buy via one of the links it may be an affiliate and I may earn a small commission.
The new year is approaching, but before I start with the new, let’s look back at the old with
A Year In Retro: 50 most popular posts of 2020.
It has been a strange year for obvious reasons and for many, a stressful and sad year. I think we are all hoping for a better 2021. But life went on, as did the Retro To Go site.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission
Credit: Johanna Geron/Reuters
SIR – If it wasn’t apparent already, the stance of Brussels in the latest rounds of negotiations for a trade deal makes it absolutely clear that the EU has no intention of according Britain the respect and consideration that almost any other independent nation on earth would be granted as a matter of course.
Instead, we were treated with disdain.
If it can do that to the nation which by its actions in 1940 made the EU possible in the first place, then one trusts that other nations will take note and be suitably circumspect in their dealings with this sclerotic polity – which looks unlikely to survive for much longer in any case.
12 . 10 . 20
Among the many gifted designers now at work in the publishing industry, Peter Mendelsund is one of my favorites. To my shame, I can’t remember the first time I saw an intriguing cover, turned to the back flap to see whose work it was, and found Mendelsund’s name, but by now I have a slew of books he’s designed, including his splendid series of Kafka and Calvino paperbacks. (He’s also a fine writer. Talent is unevenly distributed.)
In
The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature, published this fall by Ten Speed Press, Mendelsund collaborates with David J. Alworth, a scholar specializing in literature, media studies, and cultural history (deeply conversant, for instance, with the work of Bruno Latour: a red flag for me, but catnip for some) to examine the process and history of book cover design. In one way,