Acme Book News

Leab Award

for the Best Exhibition Catalogue

Dear Ron, Paul, and Everyone at Acme,

You will remember the book that we produced for the Grolier Club during the summer of 2005, and my subsequent report to you of its success at the opening of the exhibition. And that in December 2005, the book was given a merit award at the 2006 New York Book Show, in the "Scholarly and Reference, One and Two Color" category.

Well, here comes more praise, to be spread around to every one of us who had a hand in making this book:

Every year the American Library Association gives its Leab Award for the best exhibition catalogue produced in the United States and Canada. The Leab is a juried competition, run by the College and Research Library Division of the ALA.

'No Other Appetite': Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and the Blood Jet of Poetry was recently selected as the winner of this award for 2006. No doubt Acme has been involved in many Leabs in the past decades, but this is my first!

Although the Leab Award is given to the designer, the authors, and the publisher, I feel strongly that it goes to every one of you as well. This was a joint effort carried out by the authors, the copyeditor, the designer, the crews at Stinehour and Acme, and the Grolier Club. The end product was indeed both useful and beautiful.

Marcia Reed, chair of the awards committee, wrote about the book, "In a deep red binding, this memorable volume brings together two significant collections of twentieth-century literature. Mirroring the poets' marriage, the beautifully designed and well illustrated catalog succeeds admirably in publishing a book that conveys the weight of its subjects' lives and works in both text and image."

Of course we all work because it gives us our livelihoods, but for some of us who are fortunate enough in our jobs, work also enables us to do something worthwhile, to make something tangible, to stray at times into the realm of the beautiful and pleasurable, and to meet interesting people. That is certainly enough for any of us. But once in a while, it is really wonderful to have that work recognized by our peers as the best of the best.

Therefore, I hope each and every one of you at Acme will pause for a moment now that you have read this note, to feel happiness and pride in what you have made, and to realize what important allies all of you are in my life as a book designer.

Happy summer,
Bruce Kennett

weblog image