Crowe, founding editor of Zembla
magazine, and Oltermann asked 67 authors to tell them about meaningful objects in their work spaces. The answers, revealed in this playful and snappily designed book of text and photographs revolve around the things writers use for inspiration or to ward off their demons—insufficient inspiration, procrastination and writer's block. Lucky charms abound. Luis J. Rodriguez keeps a statuette of the Hindu lord of success on his desk; Siri Hustvedt has a set of abandoned keys to symbolically unlock the doors to her stories. Writing implements are important: Hanif Kureishi's pens; John Byrne's old Olympia portable typewriter; Peter Hobbs's generic red and blue notebooks. Furniture matters, too, including Alain de Botton's huge desk and Jonathan Franzen's squeaky office chair. Some writers depend on food or drink—chocolate for Douglas Coupland, tea for Tash Aw and Benjamin Markovits. And there are Arthur Bradford's dogs, Nicholson Baker's earplugs and Jay McInerney's 500,000-year-old hand ax. Each writer's short explanation of his or her relationship to a particular talisman is accompanied by a full-page color photograph of the device, making this handsome coffee-table book an intriguing object in its own right. (May)
