Eyewitness: The rise and fall of Dorling Kindersley: The Inside Story of a Publishing Phenomenon (DK Eyewitness Books)

The early chapters are the most fun, but its in the middle chapters that you get some sense of how DK operated, what its challenges were, and what its successes were. DK went through several partnerships which showed how important its corporate culture was, and how different from other publishers. The last one, with Penguin, is a final sad story. Book is both informative and fun to read.

This is the heaviest book Ive tried to read in bed! I love DK travel guides and wanted to know the story of the company. Engaging and well worth the money and the time to read.

Ive worked in publishing for more than a decade, and I recently got a hankering to read a few books about the publishing industry. I wanted something that shed some light on best practices, but I didnt want a manual. The latter is amply covered by books such as the Chicago Manual of Style or Lees Bookmaking. This new book by Christopher Davis appealed to me at first glance, since it is about an illustrated publisher, based in the U.K., called Dorling Kindersley, or DK for short. In some ways, I think this heightened the appeal for me, since I also produce illustrated books, but it may lessen the appeal for others in publishing who dont. These books are labor intensive and have problems unique to themselves, not the least of which is offsetting the formidably high costs of color printing, photo rights, and the staff needed to assemble them. Nevertheless, Daviss narrative promised the inside scoop, since he was one of the companys founders and eventually became its publisher and deputy chairman. While I didnt find many dazzling business insights in the book, I was entertained by Daviss light-handed approach to his material. There are amusing stories about the creation of several of the best-known DK books. Among the authors he mentions are Gerry Durrell (The Amateur Naturalist), Sheila Kitzinger (Pregnancy and Childbirth), John Seymour (Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency), and Sister Wendy Beckett (The Story of Painting). The catastrophic overprinting of the Star Wars Episode 1 books (by David West Reynolds, unnamed in the book) is also discussed at some length. At times Davis seems to cop the tone of a John Cleese in recounting his mad-cap experiences at the Frankfurt Book Fair and in running the business. These episodes give a glimpse at an insiders experience, particularly in its social and drunken aspects, but its hard to imagine that they would resonate with, or even amuse, anybody outside of the industry. I was disappointed by the lack of an index and bewildered by the decision to print the entire book on an unnecessarily heavy paper stock, with only one or two color photographs per signature. The books contents certainly didnt warrant this treatment. The illustrations (mostly of book covers) could have been left out entirely, or handled more cost effectively as an insert, since they are not essential to the narrative -- ironically, antithetical to the way DK handles illustrations. Overall, I recommend the book, with the right-sized expectations.

I am at the butt-end of the publishing process, being one of the sheep who baas happily when the product is good. This is one of the funniest books I have read lately. Christopher Davis manages to give us some eyewitness testimony about the realities of the publishing business in the pre-, mid- and post-PC eras, while conveying to us how exhilarating the early years must have been at DK, before the bankers moved in, with their prudent reluctance to be photographed on a white background. Daviss book is an important document for the history of the publishing industry at a certain moment of time -- perhaps a Goetterdaemmerung? It will not be of much concern to those wanting a manual on how to start and grow a publishing fortune in the e-future, but it will be of absorbing interest to cultural historians and to anyone over the age of 40 who loves books and who still has a sense of humor. Baa, baa!

I have always enjoyed DK publications for their captions, pictures and graphics. This book gives the inside story of the rise and fall of an idea and the people behind it.