Book By Its Cover » Best of BBIC 2009

I cannot believe another year has flew by. But I am ready to welcome 2010 into my arms! It’s been a great year for BBIC. We announced our press, which we will be talking more about in the coming months and welcomed Chad, Jess, Matt as regular contributors to the site.

While this blog’s purpose is to share beautiful looking books, this year I was pleased that it also became a platform for some controversial discussions on plagiarism. The most popular posts this year dealt with this issue. To recap:

A Sad Story: the unfortunate post about Lauren Nassef getting plagiarized.
A Sad Story (Continued) plus leave your copyright questions here : how Lauren wasn’t alone
Your Copyright Questions Answered: Copyright Lawyer Amy Everhart answered your questions
Sketchbook Series: Eric Ellis: Readers argued whether his work was too similar to Geoff McFedridge and some thoughtful words from Geoff himself on the subject
Finding Frida Kahlo: a new book about a found Frida archive stirs debate whether it’s authentic- with comments from the publishers, historians and museum curators.

And while there were all those serious posts, there was one amazing hilarious post. When I posted about a vintage yearbook I bought, we all had a good laugh when a reader commented that they recognized someone’s father in a photo in the yearbook. This prompted his entire family and finally the guy himself to leave comments.

And now on to my TOP TEN PICKS for BEST BOOKS of 2009 (*favorites featured this year on BBIC) :

1. An Awesome Book (since this post Dallas has been up to really “awesome” things-check out his foundation)
2. Pop Up Porn
3. Kramer’s Ergot 7 (I have decided to embrace the large format)
4. Grande Vittesse
5. Brooch
6. Pancha Tantra
7. Hot Potatoe
8. Unlovable- love having these comics all collected into one book
9. Nuturing Walls- Animal Art by Meena Women
10. The Hallowed Seam process Recess Vol. 3

READERS FAVORITES- You had some other favorites according to how many positive comments you gave these books:
1. The Arrival
2. Found Paper Journal
3. Maps
4. Red Shoes
5. Julie Morstad’s ABC
6. Animal Homes
7. The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My
8. ABC Cercasi
9. The Rainy Season
10. There was an Old Lady

And we can’t forget the wonderful wonderful sketchbooks this year: Thank you to all the artists who shared. Here are ten of my very favorites from this year (check out the rest here):
Martha Rich
Ben Finer
Renata Liwska
Andres Sandoval
Will Miller
Christian DeFilippo
Rob Dunlavey
Jenny Volvovski
Jim Stoten
Julia Pott

Thanks you to all my readers for all your great support and feedback this year. Thanks to all the publishers and artists who send me books- this blog couldn’t continue without your generosity. Stay tuned because in January I have a HUGE announcement! Plus we will start our journey with BBIC Press. And of course continue to share the best looking books out there. (Posts from now until next year will be sporadic since I will be moving- but I have a great sketchbook coming up the end of this week and more- so keeping checking back.)
xoJulia

image on homepage adapted from an illustration from Today I Will.