Colin Thompson – ‘How to live forever’

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In a library with a thousand rooms are copies of every book ever written. But one book is missing and it is called How to Live Forever. Why it is missing, and how can it be found? Only The Ancient Child hold the key to this and to a life-enhancing truth. A labyrinthine journey, in which books are to play a vital part, begins to find The Ancient Child…thompson2.jpg

Deze omschrijving hoort bij het boek ‘How To Live Forever‘ dat in 1995 werd gepubliceerd. Geschreven en getekend door Colin Thompson, geboren in 1942 in Londen, nu Australiër en sinds 1990 schrijver en tekenaar van tientallen (kinder)boeken.

Op zijn website is ook te lezen hoe tot het maken van dit boek kwam…

I saw a photo of the inside of the British Museum library and thought how fantastic it would be to do some pictures based on it. As I looked at the photo with all the old leather-bound books on the shelves I thought they looked like rows of terrace houses and so the idea for the book began to develop. I imagined how at night, when everyone had gone home, the whole place would wake up as another world. The message, that you should live your life now rather than forever in the future, developed as I wrote story.

The British Museum were kind enough to give me a guided tour very early one morning before the library opened. I took a lot of photos in the huge round reading room, which has a bigger dome than St. Paul’s Cathedral, and in the ‘stacks’ which are all the storage areas behind the reading room. It’s one of the most visually exciting buildings I’ve ever been in and I think the pictures in How To Live Forever are the best I have done. (so far) .

De afbeelding bovenaan is een limited edition printThe Bookshelf‘ naar een originele tekening uit dit boek. Te koop voor 475 Australische dollars.

In 1998 werd de cover van het boek gebruikt als logo voor het jaarlijkse ‘Los Angeles Times Festival of Books‘. Onder andere te zien op een groot billboard.

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2 Responses to “Colin Thompson – ‘How to live forever’”

  1. Hyde Scrooge schreef:

    are you crazy? every body will die. nothing everlasting excep God, you know?

  2. Lucy Fessi schreef:

    your books are fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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