Business partners and marrieds Angela Hill and David Owen – AKA IDEA Books – have cornered the market for supplying vintage, coveted and difficult-to-find magazine issues and photography books. Hill began trading years before the pair set up shop in a Brewer Street loft space, buying in curated books for famous couture house Colette in Paris after renting a west London flat with owner Sarah Lerfel. Now, IDEA source literary fare for Kenzo and Marc Jacobs stores worldwide, alongside booking private appointments with the likes of Bruce Weber and Joe McKenna. Hill talks Wonderland through seven of the IDEA archive.

1. SELF SERVICE, ISSUE 13

The post 7 Wonders: Elusive Pages appeared first on Wonderland.

Artist Tania Kovats is the latest to be invited by Louis Vuitton for their ‘Curated Shelf’ project, for her ‘shelf’ Tania chose just one book; ‘The Sea Around Us’ by Rachel Carson. Wonderland caught up with Tania to find out her fave books of all time.

1. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

2. His Dark Materials Trilogy – Phillip Pullman

3. The Sea Around Us – Rachel Carson

4. The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton

5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

6. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing

7. The Wasteland – T. S. Eliot

The post 7 WONDERS: TANIA KOVATS FAVOURITE BOOKS appeared first on Wonderland.

The Parlour Press collective – namely, Caitlin Howard, Mandi Goodier, Sophie Lee, Lucy Vann and Libby Scarlett – all live and work in London and Manchester. They met at an exhibition where they were all showcasing their own books. The story of their serendipitous meeting, according to Scarlett, goes something like this: “By the end, we’d drunk beer and were all a bit in love with each other – and lots of people were being enthusiastic and nice about our books. So we vowed to do more together, and make a collective out of the five of us.”

The Reading Room idea sprang from a desire to create a place to discover new books in relaxed, unusual settings. The group had become tired of the traditional world of vast book and zine fairs, where huge amounts of material are on display. “They’re important in building a community and getting instant feedback, but it’s really frustrating when you’ve made this book that you’ve poured yourself into and you audience overlooks most of what’s there [at the fairs]. The commercial element was also getting them down. “It’s like going to an art gallery and having the artist stare at you while you look at their piece.”

And so the concept of a small, cosy space, with drinks and a carefully curated selection of new and emerging writers and artists was born. Visitors are encouraged to sit down with a drink, and while away a few hours leafing through a selection of new books. “We just want people – any people – to come and realise that books are for them. It’s about discovering something new, that you’ve never seen or read before, with a whole evening in front of you to read and drink beer or wine or gin in this nice, comfortable atmosphere,” says Scarlett.

Armchairs, stools, bookcases and rugs collected by the Press are all ready to be rolled out at each event. While previous gatherings have taken place in pubs and on seaside piers, the girls don’t have too much criteria for a future space, as most of their setup can be crammed, as they put it, “into the back of a Nissan Micra.”

So far, the concept has been a success, and Lee believes that the decision to present a few books and magazines rather than hundreds is a timely one. “I think lots of people are tired of this fast, too-much-information-at-once existence – or people at least like the idea that they can be quiet for a while. There’s so much noise, in cities in particular, and we just wanted to create some kind of antithesis to this.”

Reading Room events are growing, and they’ve been asked to bring their brand of small-scale magic to arts festivals and to new locations. Working across cities makes it harder, but the five say it’s worth the effort. Scarlett says: “It’s a long distance relationship – we all just have to work a bit harder. We’ve always said we would love to take the Reading Room on tour one summer… pretend we’re in a band… it’s been organic from the start and I’m happy for Parlour Press to keep it evolving in that way.”

The Reading Room takes place every third Wednesday of the month at The Kenton, E9 and at various locations in Manchester and London.

Words: Olivia Gagan
Photographs: Tom Cockram

The post Parlour Press – THE READING ROOM appeared first on Wonderland.

What was the research process for the “A British Entertainment”?
It began with months of brainstorming on what defines the British Season in this era, then trawling through our black books to get contacts to get access. I had a great research team of wonderful assistants, and the guys at Thomas Pink. All were either personal contacts or family and friends – that’s what made it special.

How long have you been involved with photography?
I Started at age 17 with my first photographs whilst still at Lancing College being published as a feature in Harpers and Queen [now named Harper’s Bazaar] on girl’s arriving at a previously all boys public school and I’ve never looked back!

How did you becoming involved in this project with Thomas Pink?
We’d been talking about a book project for this year and the idea of the Season came up from Florence Torrens, the creative director, and A British Entertainment was born.

What were some of the more unusual images you recorded for this book?
That’s relative! A certain very prestigious American publication, on seeing the project, refused to believe that we Brits behave like this and felt there must have been some kind of ‘doing it for the camera’ agenda involved since it appeared to their eyes so eccentric and bonkers! So perhaps in light of this comment, the Tatler pyjama party, the Secret Garden, a tabby cat mask sporran at the Glenisla Highland Games, The Thaxted Morris Men, The Minnack Theatre, The Peebles chutney festival with the tomato splatting machine, the ‘Marie Antoinette’ figure at Glyndebourne….the list goes on!

How will you be celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee?
With a large gin and tonic.

And how would you identify with our ruling Monarch?
Since my ancestors were all Celtic robber barons who trounced the English back in the dark ages, I guess I relate to ruling monarchs quite well – didn’t they all start as robber barons too??

A British Entertainment by Jocelyn Bain Hogg, and presented by Thomas Pink, is published by Foto8, £49.99 and available at Thomas Pink stores across the globe.

The post That’s (British) Entertainment – from Thomas Pink appeared first on Wonderland.

The book not only re-affirms his skill and importance as a tattoo artist, but illustrates how his tattoos have led him to develop his art into other mediums such as paper, holograms and sculptures.

Words and images: Francesca Prudente
Scott Campbell: If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long
Rizzoli New York, 2012
Texts by Al Moran, Justin Theroux & Richard Price
Photography by Terry Richardson
Publication date: March 2012

The post BOOK CLUB: If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long appeared first on Wonderland.

Talking about the effects of drugs is boring. A person talking about the effects of drugs while they’re ON drugs is worse. Wilting eyelids and some truly unstoppable bouncing knee-action paired with romantic musings of a blurry night at Lovebox, or a hyper time at the Covent Garden Hotel with the cast of an increasingly-irrelevant TV show for teenagers; it’s bad social etiquette, even if you ARE high.

Saying that, most people are forgiven for anything if they rub you the right way; Soho King Sebastian Horsley and indestructible chanteuse Marianne Faithfull both know how to play the fiddle.

Dandy in the Underworld, Horsley’s opus on his colourful life, is a relentless ride of prying and posing through an existence of careless expenditure, addiction, and louchely transgressive behaviour and wit; a glamorous take on the grotesque. Each page has at least three lines you want to remember and use in front of your friends, pretending they were a result of your own caustic brain mechanisms, while quietly sour that they are not (even if Horsley freely admits that his repertoire is a largely borrowed affair).
His progression from boarding school through to marriage and separation, the occasional attempt at an art career, huge crack and smack habits, along with a mind-boggling amount of prostitutes is written with all the grace of a perverted Peter Pan riding a great white shark at 200 m.p.h.

If you watch his youtube videos, you’ll see that he’s one of the few people who write the way they talk, which even with autobiographies isn’t as common as it may seem. The humour is consistent, dry and striking, and highlights why most junkies are cripplingly boring. They don’t know enough jokes.

Marianne Faithfull’s autobiography lives up to pretty much every aspect that built her reputation over the last few decades, the salacious as well as the triumphant.

Making the exponential transition from the 60’s, virginal, sacrificial pop-lamb to a homeless waif that was wasted 24/7, to an eventual recovery, important music and a voice like a chemical peel, Faithfull is candid and lovely throughout. Anyone who isn’t afraid to be ugly is always appealing, especially if they’re initially renowned for being the opposite.

Her casual reminiscing of how, on the steps of her Doctor’s office, she would run into Eric Clapton, also waiting for prescribed jacks of heroin, emphasises the ridiculousness of it all. She can’t help but sprinkle a ladylike dusting over the squalor.
If you’re a socially conscious person, probably the biggest benefit of having a job you don’t care about is that you care about the people even less. Horsley and Faithfull communicate their lazy attitudes towards art and pop music, along with anyone else that may care about their addictions, with an undeniable likeability that carries each book above anything that believes itself more sincere.

Both books portray lives that we find easy to forgive for being so primarily privileged, because if we wanted to know the real tragedies of urban poverty and drug addiction, we’d offer the homeless girl who lives near Somerfield by Walkers Court ten quid to tell us her life story.

If you want to read about drugs, whether it’s an acclaimed Bullshit-Bible by James Frey or Poppy Z Brite’s cloyingly sugar-coated biography of Courtney Love, both Dandy in the Underworld and Faithfull will tie your arm for you, and both are more effective than watching Tara Palmer-Tomkinson whizzing her tits off on the Frank Skinner show.

Both Books are available now on Amazon
Words: Ryan Child

The post Book Club – High Reads appeared first on Wonderland.

The first biography to be written about Alan Moore brings an in-depth look at the comic’s life and career with never before seen images from his personal archives. From his youth to his entrance onto the comic book scene, the book touches upon sexuality, passion, politics, life and death.

For comic book fans, Alan Moore: Storyteller is a must buy- including never before seen scripts for V for Vendetta and other materials that have never been published.

For the nonconformist, the biography tells the story of a successful comics book author breaking into the music, contemporary fiction, performance art and magic industries. The book is complete with a CD including Moore’s performance art and songs.

Words: Eunice Jera Lee

Available in stores Friday 22 July 2011- Retails for £25.

The post Alan Moore- Storyteller appeared first on Wonderland.