In Grafik 150 David Quay's contribution is a lovely story from his childhood and specifically a brief account of how he came to own a copy of The World in our Time.
I particularly like his entry because, ever since I picked up that old atlas, I've become increasingly interested in books of knowledge. Partly because of the knowledge they hold, for some reason I'm now actually interested in the things they tried to teach us at school; partly because of their covers, these Life Science Library editions have part green/part cream cloth covers with foil blocked logo and title; and partly because, inside their musty smelling covers, are many hidden visual gems. Some, like the full colour, nearly full page illustrations are stunning.
I picked up Flight and Sound and Hearing.
See more here.
These are great. I recently found a 1974 copy of Graphis Diagrams. Information design in 60's/70's educational books was amazing. What year were these editions published?
Posted by: jonathan turner | 10 July 2007 at 01:15 PM
1970.
Ref. Graphis Diagram - Have you seen this?
http://thingstolookat.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Richard | 10 July 2007 at 01:48 PM
I was fortunate enough to have received both this series and the TIme-Life Nature sets as a kid, but they're long gone. Knowing what I know now about color print production these things were seriously labor-intensive to produce at the time. They were also fantastic bookworm fodder :)
Posted by: 42 | 12 July 2007 at 12:40 AM
These books serve as an excellent inspiration source for a project I'm currently working on. Thank you for posting them.
For those that are interested, a quick look in Amazon (US) reveals many of the titles from this series are available for less than a dollar.
Posted by: Patrick | 18 July 2007 at 08:34 PM