Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle
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Everything is its own reward Winner of the Northern California Book Award's Recognition Award as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2011 "Madonna captures snapshots in time as he explores the relationship between image and text... that's so gorgeously rendered in Madonna's precise yet fluid pen-and-ink style, it feels like it could be anywhere and everywhere." - Publisher's Weekly "When his international images are paired with his sparse, poetic words, the effect is haunting. Though Madonna travels the globe, it's not the famous sites or wonders that catch his attention... and the experience of being in his world is mesmerizing." Top 11 books of 2011 - Oprah.com "...miraculously exquisite... dreamy and surprisingly emotional." Top 10 graphic books of 2011 - Salon.com "Paul Madonna has not only pressed graphic fiction way beyond its present boundaries, he has created a new and stunning art form where the stand-alone brilliant visuals and the hauntingly human words synthesize into a pure and irreducible aesthetic vision. This book taught me something fundamental and true and beautiful about the ineffable thereness and thingness of life. Everything is its Own Reward is a work of genius." - Robert Olen Butler author of A Small Hotel, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain "The book is fantastic. Of time and tenderness. Beautiful drawings. Beautiful text. Ethereal and serious at once. The book is its own reward." - Maira Kalman author of The Principles of Uncertainty "...detail, willful eccentricity, an almost rococo approach to line, and a steadfast devotion to art for its own sake, beauty as its own reward. Paul Madonna's work gives itself fully to all of these notions." - Dave Eggers author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius "Paul Madonna is a pen master. His work is difficult to categorize but that he was MAD magazine's first art intern may help explain his ability to capture human experience in its odd fullness. " - The Boston Globe "...check out Paul Madonna's surreal guide to the city's zeitgeist, a sketchbook of "sideways" cameos in ink-wash drawings of San Francisco's eccentric architecture and streetscapes, captioned with poetry, haiku or overheard conversations." - The Australian "Madonna's detailed but unfussy drawings bear the same human touch as so many of the buildings he depicts... a quality of life, a state of mind, predicated on the luxury of having an existence in which the only dramas to speak of are personal." - Art Practical Go to the PRESS page for an extended list |
Book 1 All Over Coffee published by City Lights Books Book 2 Everything is its own reward published by City Lights Books Collaborative strips FREE APP Everything is its own reward |