No. 1 on the Guardian list of “100 best non-fiction books of all time.“

Awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, “The Sixth Extinction” is an adventurous and sensible exploration and profoundly challenges our thinking about the relationship between humans and nature.

Our Choice

TOC Creative Director Susanna Dulkinys set out to visually express what Elizabeth Kolbert conveys in her writing. For the cover, each pattern element is a life form in its perfection, but underneath, in an acid green color, these characters are distorted and exploded, representing change and destruction. Inside the pattern, repeat randomly on full pages, printed letterpress. The pattern elements are part of a typeface developed by Zuzana Licko, Slovak-born American type designer and Emigre Fonts co-Founder.

The typeface is FF Hertz, named after Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves. FF Hertz is a uni-width typeface, meaning that each letter occupies the same width in all weights. If you change the weight of a word or a whole line, the text will not reflow. We particularly like the figures: they remind us of our 70’s typewriters. For titles, chapter headings, and other places requiring a louder voice, we picked a typeface by a good friend, Christoph Koeberlin, who describes his Fabrikat thus: “It is a geometric typeface which is based on 20th-century German engineers’ typefaces. Due to its constructed architecture, it works well in headlines and other display use.”

About the Author

Elizabeth Kolbert, born in 1961, graduated from Yale in literature and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in Hamburg, Germany. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999 and an editor of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009. Kolbert lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children. She has received several awards for her work, among them two National Magazine Awards, the SEAL, the Environmental Journalism Award, and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

It is signed by Elizabeth Kolbert, and the edition is limited to 998 copies.

About the Production and Materials

Letterpress printing: Die Lettertypen Berlin
on a 1954 Original Heidelberg Cylinder
Book jacket printed on Gmund Cotton Paper
Binding & finishing at Buchbinderei Müller, Leipzig
Paper: 90g Schleipen Werkdruck
Endpapers: Peyer Surbalin Linea
Cover linen: Schabert Brillianta
Set in FF Hertz by Jens Kutilek plus FABRIKAT by Christoph Köberlin
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3-949164-05-7

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Elizabeth Kolbert | The Sixth Extinction | Pulitzer Prize Winner

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A limited edition, letterpress book collection

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Elizabeth Kolbert | The Sixth Extinction | Pulitzer Prize Winner

Erik Spiekermann | Find out how type works

Creating a Unique Reading Experience