Kapow! by name, kapow by nature - check out the latest Visual Editions book

There is always a lot of expectation when Visual Editions promise a new release. Expecting the unexpected is somewhat of a by-line to their design-led challenges of a conventional reading experiencel; case in point, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, an extraordinary die-cut novel that invites you to read between the negative spaces.

This time they’re offering us: “A Great Story. That is Also Great Looking” What a line so yes please. Kapow! by Adam Thirlwell is a thing of confidence – both in terms of design (by the ever-good Studio Frith) and writing. Moving you literally about the page, the words take a reader between Cairo and London, from the top of the page, down and diagonally across, it’s as dynamic an object as the story it’s depicting. A writer, reflecting on the events of the Arab Spring and the global unrest it spawned, uses a digressive and real-time written tactics to reflect the perspective of all the news, all-at-once while maintaining a “Bollywood style” love story.

In a format that could only ever be realised in print, Visual Editions and their boundary pushing authors are keeping warm a spot close to all book-lovers hearts.