The Griffin & Sabine Trilogy Boxed Set: Griffin & Sabine/Sabine's Notebook/The Golden Mean

This is an underground cult classic. I heard about this first on an author's Baen book listserve (can't remember which) and I was intrigued.

About ten years later, I found all three books at my library's used book sale for $9. I took them home and immediately opened the first one.

This books sucked me in. I loved the artistic nature of the books, and the interactive experience. Sabine and Griffin's story is sweet, and then tragic, and them bordering on hysterically absurd. I still don't know what happened but I'm glad I got to watch it unfold.

I see there is a sequel. Why aren't Bantock's books more well-known and available in the US?

These books formed a very large portion of my childhood. My mom used to read them to me, at a maddeningly slow pace. Each night when I was heading to bed she'd come into my room and we'd painstakingly remove a letter from its envelope. We'd spend nearly as much time looking over the drawings, the postcards, just the gorgeous artwork of each piece. Then the letter would be read.

It was a magical experience, and one I ended up repeating on my own when I was old enough. I spend just as much time examining the script, the art. These books are a work of art, as much as the story in and of itself is. It's a book to fire the imagination, to whet the appetite for more.

The books are works of art in themselves. The story revolves around Griffin, a man who designs cards and an islander woman, Sabine and their extraordinary correspondence through letters and postcards. What's quirky is that Sabine can 'see' Griffin designing his work even though she's not physically there with him. A romance develops between the two and they seek to find a way to 'leap' into the same dimension so they can be together.

What's startling about these books are that the story is delivered in actual letters that one pulls out of little envelops stuck in the book, or written on beautiful postcards, and the pages are often illustrated with little symbols, doodles, or partial designs. It's beautiful, it's exotic, it's sublime and show more one loses oneself in the story and in the art. show less

This is a wonderful set of Bantock's enchanting Griffin and Sabine series. The story is told in correspondence between two strangers, but the plot isn't really the point here - the telling is. Each page is a postcard, or letter (front of the page is the front of the postcard, back of the page is the writing) - the letters are real letters, that are in envelopes, that you take out and read. The joy in this series comes from the thrill one gets out of reading someone else's mail. The illustrations are gorgeous.

How can you not love these "books"? They are not so much books as they are individual pieces of art. I love that you can remove the letters from the book. The story is beautiful but the books themselves are artistic masterpieces of modern publishing.

After reading all three books, I'm still left uncertain as to what was really happening. I loved reading the postcards and letters, but I didn't enjoy the artwork very much at all. My curiosity kept me turning the pages to see where the story was leading. I remain curious and will pick up the next three to see where this relationship ends up. (3/5)

Originally posted on: "Thoughts of Joy..."

I think that I would have appreciated this more when I was younger. It's a very beautiful idea, but not executed in a way that satisfied me.

2015 Popsugar Reading Challenge Item 32: A trilogy.