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uwmspeccoll · 3 years

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Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence

As the end of 2020 grows nearer, reflection upon the many ways this year has changed how we communicate with each other feels necessary. With this in mind, we present Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence, written and illustrated by British artist and author Nick Bantock. Published by Chronicle Books in San Francisco, the 1991 bestseller is the first in a trilogy of novels told through literal postcards and letters centered around the character of Griffin Moss, an isolated postcard artist, who receives a cryptic letter from a woman named Sabine, a postage-stamp illustrator from an island in the South Pacific, claiming to see visions of his artwork as he creates it. Readers of this epistolary love-story/mystery series experience Griffin struggling to make sense of his loneliness and wonder whether Sabine could possibly be a figment of his imagination as he grows more attached to the idea of her as his soulmate. For Chronicle Books, the trilogy became one of the company’s most successful titles; the first three books alone spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and sold more than three million copies.

While living through the loneliness that Griffin endures might have been a stretch for some readers prior to months of quarantines and lockdowns, it now looms in our collective rear-view mirror as the pandemic drags on. Griffin describes days without human interaction, demonstrating his need for connection through an eager willingness to bind himself to a stranger and contributing an almost painful vulnerability through his letters, while Sabine remains a tempting daydream just out of reach.

Between physically opening a letter addressed to someone else and being confronted with the overwhelming honesty of its content, readers are enveloped by an inescapable sense of manufactured intimacy, a phenomenon not unlike the feeling of stumbling upon a Facebook post that completely and unexpectedly aligns with your perspective. Creating this sensation of togetherness has been integral to trends in communication throughout 2020, while periods of extreme separation from loved ones continue and technological communication remains essential. Our methods of communication are different, but the core feelings expressed in Griffin and Sabine’s correspondence is echoed in magnified scale, rendering one line from Griffin’s correspondence achingly applicable: “Make sure you look after yourself.”

-- Emily, Special Collections Writing Intern

#griffin and sabine #nick bantock #Sptolight #Chronicle Books #epistolary novels #letters #postcards #mysteries #love stories #illustrations #illustrated books #coronavirus pandemic #emily birz

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indiehangover · 5 years

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PAX Sptolight: One Step From Eden

#PAXEast #indiegame Sptolight: @OneStepFromEden by #indiedev @ThomasMoonKang A thrilling, fast paced mix of bullet hell action, deckbuilding and roguelike elements

If I was forces to choose the indie game that impressed me most at this year’s PAX East, it’d be One Step From Eden. Hidden among the games at the Indie Minibooth, I was initially a little shocked by it’s tagline of combining action gameplay with roguelike elements and…deckbuilding?

It’s a strange combination, but developer Thomas Moon Kanghas manged to blend them perfectly and has created an…

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#demo #One Step From Eden #PAX East #Thomas Moon Kang

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