The multi-genre anthology – posing endless opportunity for anarcho-shelving – has always had a place in Unity's heart. It is right up there with our affection for that increasingly rare thing, a multinational publisher's Merlot. Things converged in 2017 when Unity Books decided to celebrate 50 years of trading by re-publishing excerpts from staff-authored works. The only common ingredient in these pieces is that after a day's work shelving and bookselling, the authors then went home and wrote prose and poetry that is as good as the best writing they've ever sold.

Process

Lee Jensen designed the initial template for this anthology, though he encouraged collaboration and the freedom to make several of our own design choices along the way, an example being the contents page. I also took charge of photographing all the featured books, colour-correcting them along the way and carefully stitching their spines onto their images (the idea came from a conversation we had with Tilly about how books really are recognised from their spines!). We made sure to get wet prints from the printers, and I manually edited and corrected the images on our most calibrated monitor in the classroom. 

team members

Project managers
Sophie Macdonald and Emily Goldthorpe

Cover design
Sarah Maxey

Editor
Ruby Zimmermann

Production
Christine Ling and Sophie Macdonald

Photography
Christine Ling

Marketing
Olivia Nikkel and Emily Goldthorpe