Biography Gavin Pretor-PinneyGavin Pretor-Pinney is a designer and writer. He founded the Cloud Appreciation Society in 2004 and is author of the bestseller The Cloudspotter’s Guide, described by the Financial Times as “eloquent and engaging”. Pretor-Pinney is also the co-founder of The Idler magazine, a bi-annual publication dedicated to the restoration of the art of loafing. At this year’s Port Eliot Festival, he’ll be telling us all about waves… Gavin Pretor-Pinney attended Westminster School, Oxford and Central St. Martins, where he graduated with degrees in philosophy and graphic design respectively, and now lives in London and Somerset. Founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, which now boasts over 4,000 worldwide members and was ‘launched’ at the 2004 Port Eliot Festival, Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide was turned down by 28 publishers before finding a home with Sceptre. Now a bestseller, its reviews underline both the relevance of the subject matter and the lost opportunity of several publishing houses. |
|---|
The Metro said “his style is genial, his enthusiasm uplifting and his book nothing less than a subtle but glorious mantra for a way of life”, while the Daily Mail urged, “Read this eye-opening and amusingly written book and you will realise that, beautiful as they are, clouds are not just there for decoration – they are truly awesome things.”
Pretor-Pinney is also the co-founder, with Tom Hodgkinson, of The Idler Magazine and as heads of Idle Industries they worked on creative development for such clients as the Guardian and Channel 4.
www.cloudappreciationsociety.org
“Designed by the author in the same old-school style he brought to The Idler, it is also elegantly written…a neat mixture of explanatory oomph and comic crispness; when it comes to the somewhat inevitable anthropomorphic analogies, the low, misty stratus is ‘not only the annoying friend who stands too close’ but also ‘the one who doesn’t know when it’s time to leave’, while strato- cumulus is ‘always in transition’ and therefore ‘not unlike the pop singer Cher at the height of her costume-changing stage routines’.”
John Harris, The Guardian
Links:
We apprecicate you insights into literary festivals that you might have attended or are hoping to get too, or your views on award winning books.
Comment