Speaking to the Past

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About Speaking to the Past

A Penguin 75th Anniversary Project by Douglas Coupland

Penguin covers!

With their cutting edge worthiness! And their dutiful minimalism! What would our lives be like without them?

Last month I installed new bookshelves in a room in my house. They're black, and my painter offered the unsolicited opinion that they might look depressing when completed. I knew he was wrong because, at the very least, the paperback shelf couldn't help but have a cheerful orange zing a zing that comes from the Penguin spine, the most wonderfully insidious default interior design statement in our culture. Even crack dens glow with Penguins on the shelf.

And how many of us can time-stamp periods in our life just by the merest glance a Penguin cover and its genius format? College. Loneliness. Relationships. Adulthood. In some sense Penguin covers function more as diaries than they do as covers.

So I got to thinking, when Penguins start talking back to you, it makes you realize that the Penguin dialogue is a lifelong dialogue one of life's catch-free pleasures. Happy 75th, Penguin, and to anyone reading this, join in the discussion. It's easy, fun and oh, so worthy.

—Douglas Coupland, March, 2010

http://www.speakingtothepast.ca/