The Happy Reader – Issue 14

The Happy Reader Issue 14 is available now on loremnotipsum.com! The issue for winter 2019 marks The Happy Reader’s fifth anniversary. As absorbing, beautiful and freewheeling as ever, it brings together an in-depth conversation with fashion’s Grace Wales Bonner and an exploration of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ fascinatingly odd novel Against Nature.

The issue for winter 2019 marks The Happy Reader’s fifth anniversary. As absorbing, beautiful and freewheeling as ever, it brings together an in-depth conversation with fashion’s Grace Wales Bonner and an exploration of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ fascinatingly odd novel Against Nature.

Grace Wales Bonner is a 28 year old fashion designer from south-east London. She has been feted by the worlds of both serious culture and high glamour, but here’s the unusual part: her clothes come with reading lists. Interviewed by Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri for this Happy Reader cover story, Grace explains how she sees herself on some level as a researcher. She visits libraries, digests acres of complex ideas about politics and identity, and expresses them, among other things, via the realm of clothes.

The Happy Reader is the world’s magazine-shaped reading group: each issue explores a single book, a classic, a work that has survived the changing tastes of several generations. The Book of the Season this winter is Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Against Nature (1884), perhaps the most decadent novel ever written. Its relentless inventory-keeping thrills and inspires some readers and baffles others, and is highly relevant to this season of non-stop accumulation. Contributors include Jarvis Cocker, Lydia Davis, Rob Doyle and Jeanette Winterson.

The magazine is centred on the concept of ‘precious print’, as embodied by Penguin Classics and Fantastic Man. It explores the myriad advantages of the printed word and image: beautiful typography, high dwell time, the matte charm of ink on paper, the calming luxury of being ‘offline’. The magazine is a design object in and of itself.

The Happy Reader is a unique magazine about reading for anyone who wishes to stay inspired, informed and entertained. With beautiful typography, the magazine is a design object which celebrates the pure pleasure of reading and the calming luxury of being offline. Each issue is split into two halves. The first half is an in-depth interview with a book fanatic and the second half gets under the skin of one classic work of literature. The concept of the magazine is excitingly simple: the first half is a long-form interview with a notable book fanatic and the second half explores one Penguin Classics title from an array of surprising and invigorating angles, through fashion, art, lifestyle, history, film and more. The Happy Reader is published four times per year. The magazine is centred on the concept of ‘precious print’, as embodied by Penguin Classics and Fantastic Man. It explores the myriad advantages of the printed word and image: beautiful typography, high dwell time, the matte charm of ink on paper, the calming luxury of being ‘offline’. The magazine is a design object in and of itself.

Details: The Happy Reader – Issue 14

64 pages, 24.5 × 17 cm, Softcover