Name: Larry Knox
Nicknames: El Kay (but just Annie)
Job at PH: Art Director
Book Cover he’s Featured On:
I started out on the original Literary Touchstone edition of Frankenstein and now the SAT Words from Literature edition of Frankenstein.
Since then there's been the Literary Touchstone edition of Siddhartha along with a few supporting roles including Spoon River Anthology, Transcendentalism: Essential Essays of Emerson and Thoreau, Pride and Prejudice, Great Stories of Horror and Suspense, The Iliad and The Turn of the Screw.
Favorite Word(s): yes
Catch Phrases: None consciously (I hate to repeat myself...)
Favorite Book(s):
On the Road and Dharma Bums, both by Jack Kerouac (his prose reads like poetry, I never tire of it)
To Kill a Mockingbird - how can you read this after seeing the movie and not see and hear Gregory Peck as Atticus or Mary Badham as Scout? Amazing book and movie that made our world a little better place.
David Copperfield – such a wonderful cast of characters; Mr. Macawber, Peggoty, the Murdstones, Steeerforth, Aunt Betsey, Mr. Dick, Barcus (is willin'), and of course, Uriah Heep!
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse: simple, powerful and inspiring
Favorite Children’s Book:
Anything by Maurice Sendak (of course Where the Wild Things Are because it changed how we perceived the picture book), but also The Juniper Tree —Grimms Fairy Tales at their finest.
or William Joyce (Santa Calls, or The Leaf Men)
Favorite Under Taught Book:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Favorite Author(s):
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Dickens, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Favorite Poem:
The Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg
"and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul
too, and anyone who'll listen,... "
Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, 1955
Favorite Movie Based on a Book:
The Black Stallion. An art film in every sense of the word. The cinematography is breathtaking with a soundtrack by Carmine Coppola that is it's equal–haunting, nostalgic, uplifting). It's a staple on my iPod.
Favorite Band/Music:
Of all time:The Beatles.
This year: Tegan and Sara (Sainthood - every track a gem)
Favorite Food:
Lucky Charms–They're magically delicious! (Made with whole grain, Lucky Charms is fortified with 12 vitamins and minerals, and is a good source of calcium).
Favorite Prestwick House Product:
As much as I have enjoyed creating the wide variety of covers for our Touchstone series, from a design perspective I would have to say the Discovering Genre series. With this 3 volume set I was able to indulge my love for surrealism and dream landscapes with each title (hopefully more in the future). I also feel the text layout is one of our best.
Favorite Literary Quote:
"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty, I think of Dean Moriarty."
–– On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Yea, but it's not just me...
"On the Road “had been like a bible for me. I loved the breathless, dynamic bop poetry phrases that flowed from Jack’s pen . . . I fell into that atmosphere of everything Kerouac was saying about the world being completely mad, and the only people for him that were interesting were the mad people, the mad ones, the ones who were mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn, all of those mad ones, and I felt like I fit right into that bunch.”
- Bob Dylan
One Random Fact:
As a child I was once locked inside the Canterbury Cathedral after wandering off on the last tour of the day...
Thoughts about the Photo Shoot:
Each shoot has it's own unique background story and (mis)adventure attached to it...too numerous to write about here but you can see some background on a select few at my personal website, LarryKnox.com with more to come soon.
