Abbey Road

If you're in the mood for a stunning, sumptuous, beautifully produced coffee table book about a legendary recording studio, then I do believe we have just the item for you.

Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World is by Alistair Lawrence and comes with a foreword from Sir George Martin. It publishes next week in the UK, and in October in North America. Here's a short piece of descriptive copy about it:

The first photographic celebration of the most famous recording studio in the world, publishing in its 80th year. Unprecedented access to the Abbey Road archive - from Edward Elgar to the Beatles, Kate Bush to Elbow the most famous artists in the world have recorded here. This gorgeous book includes material on the artists, the engineers, the technology and the history of Abbey Road. It's an incredible document of cultural history, for anyone who values music and how it's made.

There's a link to the book on Amazon.co.uk here, and to the book on Amazon.com here.

Also (and this is the kind of thing I get pathetically excited about), there's a limited, numbered special edition of the book (200 copies only - each signed by Sir George) which you can pre-order through the Bloomsbury website or find in a handful of specialist bookstores.

And finally, there's a piece on the book at the Abbey Road website, here.

Pitchfork Fest!

For the first time ever, Pitchfork Music Festival, the biggest indie festival in the US, is hosting a literary section. They're calling it the Book Fort, and it will host several awesome vendors, including McSweeney's, Chicago's own Featherproof Books, and many more. Oh, and us--yep, two of us from team 33 1/3 will be there, both repping our books and hanging out for the readings and discussions. P-fork says:

Heralded for its innovative publications, Chicago-based Featherproof Books is the perfect host for this year's PMF Book Fort. Armed with literary ammo and manned by some of the most dangerous minds in indie publishing, the Book Fort offers the chance to learn about up-and-coming young writers, leaf through books hot-off-the-presses, and find your next book-club read. Panel discussions and readings will contribute to the festival's stimulating creative atmosphere.

We're still locking down details, but if you're in Chicago July 13-15 and are coming to the Pitchfork Music Festival, come say hi and pick up a book or two. (Plus, have you seen that lineup? It's pretty great!) See you there.