I don’t get excited about catalogues usually, even the nicely designed ones. Perhaps I’ll read certain catalogs with vigor, but hardly excitement. The Taschen catalog, on the other hand, makes me very happy and I giggle silently like a Japanese school girl* whenever it comes in the mail.
Set up more like a magazine than a catalog, it’s always chock full of many, many fantastical things. They really put some time and energy into this catalog and then give the whole thing away for free. I almost feel guilty that I’ve never actually bought something through the catalog. Of course I’ve bought many Taschen books through Amazon or book stores, so I guess that their marketing efforts have paid off to some degree.
If you’re an art book lover and you’re thinking about going into one of the Taschen shops, you either need to a) hide your wallet somewhere you can’t get to it, or b) don’t go in, because you will spend lots of money here. Last time I went to the Beverly Hills store, I walked out with nearly $200 in books, and that was after the sale price, but I digress. There was even a brief moment where I tried to justify the purchase of the magnificent GOAT book, a mammoth piece of publishing, chronicling the life of Muhammad Ali, that warrants attention along with a very healthy price tag.
The Taschen magazine/catalog is great. If you’d like to get one for yourself, head on over to Taschen.com and get yourself on the list.
*I have no idea what Japanese school girls laugh like except for what I see in Anime movies. My wife Japanese and she laughs very loud.
