Exploding with unfolding pages and multiple directions is Kapow! by British writer Adam Thirlwell. Set in the thick of the Arab Spring, it is guided by the high-speed monologue of an unnamed narrator — over-doped, over-caffeinated, overweight — trying to make sense of this history in real time.

Nominated for the London Design Museum, Design of the Year award in 2013, this clever, funny, and bitingly critical cultural commentary uses spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution.

Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator’s giddy digressions. A beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell’s uniquely acrobatic voice, this is a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other.

Designed by London-based Studio Frith

Published May 2012
ISBN 978-0-9565692-3-3
Paperback
£15 / $25