Rating: 
Summary: Excellent gift idea for Sentimentals of all ages.
Review: Short, craftily designed book of love letters and postcards which is an enjoyable read over and over again. Illustrations alone make the book a great gift
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Summary: I never get tired of this book
Review: The beautiful story and the intriguing correspondence of Griffin and Sabine's... accounts of their lives earmarks the beginning of an extraordinary relationship. A perfect gift, or even better buy the set of three books, and a great gift for someone enjoys finely-crafted arts. Appropriate for all ages, but perhaps better for high-school age or older. Sure to be a classic for generations to come.
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Summary: the most unique book you will ever read
Review: The inside cover has alternating strips of a London tube map mixed with a map of the South Pacific Sicmon Islands. Without the paper jacket the book is a charcoal gray, with a bright reddish-orange spine and type. Just inside, the first page reads,
" GRIFFIN & SABINE
Turning and turning in..."
The title tells all the book is about and yet reveals nothing. One is compelled to turn the pages simply out of the curiosity that the inside cover and first page inspire. The first "real" page of the book greets the reader with a tropical picture of a parrot-sort-of-bird floating in a cornmeal-colored rectangle. The cornmeal-colored rectangle becomes the center of a charcoal, gray page reminiscent of the outside cover. Floating with the bird are feathers, postage stamps, and a red ink stamp of the word "air."
The stamps mimic the parrot in every way except in color. Printed on the stamps, besides the bird, are the words "Katin," and 3c or 4c. These familiar postage symbols and the unrecognizable name are what first reach the reader. From here, the reader is introduced to two characters: expectedly, Griffin and Sabine. Griffin is a postcard/stationary designer, and owner of Gryphon Greeting Cards. Sabine is an islander who creates postage stamps for her home, the Sicmon Islands. This information is not revealed right away, however. It rather, materializes slowly as we embark with them on a mysterious metaphysical journey of exploration and discovery. The pages turn as the reader indulges in the voyeuristic pleasure of reading another person's mail: pulling out letters and opening cards.
Bantock intersperses realistic, everyday dialogue into his own original artwork of collage, lead, and paint, resulting in a magical passport into a world all its own. We are compelled to search not just the text, but also the sea of images surrounding it, to uncover the mysterious magnetism that draws Griffin and Sabine inevitably closer to one another. Sabine, contacting Griffin at the first, is a siren calling Griffin and us away to a place of speculation and consuming wonder. Sabine unfolds with a strong, fluid, brown ink script that, at once, exudes confidence, balance, and a touch of the preternatural. Griffin's error-fraught, typewritten messages boldly personify and externalize his apprehension and insecurity. We are able to read along with them in an interactive manner, with the cards and letters being tangible and sometimes removable. Drawn in instantly by Sabine's nonchalant and open mystery, the reader follows Griffin along on his mental and physical discovery of himself and the seemingly intangible Sabine.
Rating:
Summary: the most unique book you will ever read
Review: The inside cover has alternating strips of a London tube map mixed with a map of the South Pacific Sicmon Islands. Without the paper jacket the book is a charcoal gray, with a bright reddish-orange spine and type. Just inside, the first page reads,
" GRIFFIN & SABINE
Turning and turning in..."
The title tells all the book is about and yet reveals nothing. One is compelled to turn the pages simply out of the curiosity that the inside cover and first page inspire. The first "real" page of the book greets the reader with a tropical picture of a parrot-sort-of-bird floating in a cornmeal-colored rectangle. The cornmeal-colored rectangle becomes the center of a charcoal, gray page reminiscent of the outside cover. Floating with the bird are feathers, postage stamps, and a red ink stamp of the word "air."
The stamps mimic the parrot in every way except in color. Printed on the stamps, besides the bird, are the words "Katin," and 3c or 4c. These familiar postage symbols and the unrecognizable name are what first reach the reader. From here, the reader is introduced to two characters: expectedly, Griffin and Sabine. Griffin is a postcard/stationary designer, and owner of Gryphon Greeting Cards. Sabine is an islander who creates postage stamps for her home, the Sicmon Islands. This information is not revealed right away, however. It rather, materializes slowly as we embark with them on a mysterious metaphysical journey of exploration and discovery. The pages turn as the reader indulges in the voyeuristic pleasure of reading another person's mail: pulling out letters and opening cards.
Bantock intersperses realistic, everyday dialogue into his own original artwork of collage, lead, and paint, resulting in a magical passport into a world all its own. We are compelled to search not just the text, but also the sea of images surrounding it, to uncover the mysterious magnetism that draws Griffin and Sabine inevitably closer to one another. Sabine, contacting Griffin at the first, is a siren calling Griffin and us away to a place of speculation and consuming wonder. Sabine unfolds with a strong, fluid, brown ink script that, at once, exudes confidence, balance, and a touch of the preternatural. Griffin's error-fraught, typewritten messages boldly personify and externalize his apprehension and insecurity. We are able to read along with them in an interactive manner, with the cards and letters being tangible and sometimes removable. Drawn in instantly by Sabine's nonchalant and open mystery, the reader follows Griffin along on his mental and physical discovery of himself and the seemingly intangible Sabine.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended for all Myst fans (and vice versa).
Review: The other reviews here will clue you in: Griffin & Sabine is a consuming phenomenon -- if it touches you at all, it will touch you at the core. Nick Bantock synthesizes prose and artwork into a convincing scrapbook of postal correspondence (complete with handwritten letters actually folded inside envelopes attached to the pages), a fiction which anyone with a shred of romanticism will desperately, desperately want to believe. I have a great love for the Myst computer game; while playing Myst, I sensed a strange familiarity in its wonder, mystery, beauty, and exquisite narrative tension. In a later visit to my bookshelf, I realized I had felt that delirious mix years before -- when I first read Griffin & Sabine. This first book of the trilogy is the strongest of the three; it stands completely on its own (if you can tolerate open endings, as in Myst). Frankly, I wish Bantock had been commissioned to create the Myst books; he does with print what Rand an! d Robyn Miller have done with the multimedia CD-ROM (whereas the official Myst novels show little, if any, artistry). If you have gone through either Myst or Griffin & Sabine and are hungering for more, don't hesitate to pick up the other.
Rating:
Summary: A lovely little book
Review: The true attraction of this book is that it is correspondence - letters to and from people who are at first wrapped in mystery, and whose characters develop over the length of the book. And don't we all love to read letters! Especially other people's - there is something mysterious and forbidden about it. The letters are beautifully written, and really engross you with their richness and detail. And it is a beautiful looking book too. The illustrations are wonderful - it is almost like a grown up child's book. Ultimately, it is appealing in all ways. I can recommend it to any worthy book collector!
Rating: 
Summary: Weird, not worth your money
Review: These books are too weird. They left me feeling dark and strange, like reading about possession (isn't that really what they're about? Be honest!). Don't bother to waste your time and money.
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Summary: Master of Arts!
Review: This book changed the way I read. Bantock's technique is the most original, breathtaking, profound and beautiful form of storytelling imaginable. This book is truly unique and interactive. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a writer that really breaks out of the same-old-same-old and aspires to create a book that makes you live the story, not just read it! This is a must-own!
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely, but More of an Objet d?Art than a Book
Review: This book is a wholly original piece of imagination that engages you on a variety of different planes. Each page is a postcard or letter between a woman on a tiny south Pacific island who designs stamps (not much mail where she is but the stamps are popular with collectors) and a man in London who designs postcards whom she has never met but whose paintings she can "watch" from 13,000 miles away as they take shape. But it is not words you read, it's pictures of words because each page is a brilliant piece of art representing a postcard, front and back. And sometimes an envelope into which your fingers, tingling with anticipation, reach to pull out a letter or a typed and folded page, thereby engaging you in the story and the art. And because each of the two characters is a gifted artist, the postcard images are splendid, ranging from whimsical to brooding. What is the story, which ends in a mystery, all about? I don't know, but then, you don't have to explain art, which may be the point the author/painter is making. The story is short (you will read it in half an hour or less), and hardly a literary heavyweight. But if you're like me, you'll want to take this book off the shelf and enjoy its pages and letters over and over. In the end it just might give you years of pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely, but More of an Objet d¿Art than a Book
Review: This book is a wholly original piece of imagination that engages you on a variety of different planes. Each page is a postcard or letter between a woman on a tiny south Pacific island who designs stamps (not much mail where she is but the stamps are popular with collectors) and a man in London who designs postcards whom she has never met but whose paintings she can "watch" from 13,000 miles away as they take shape. But it is not words you read, it's pictures of words because each page is a brilliant piece of art representing a postcard, front and back. And sometimes an envelope into which your fingers, tingling with anticipation, reach to pull out a letter or a typed and folded page, thereby engaging you in the story and the art. And because each of the two characters is a gifted artist, the postcard images are splendid, ranging from whimsical to brooding. What is the story, which ends in a mystery, all about? I don't know, but then, you don't have to explain art, which may be the point the author/painter is making. The story is short (you will read it in half an hour or less), and hardly a literary heavyweight. But if you're like me, you'll want to take this book off the shelf and enjoy its pages and letters over and over. In the end it just might give you years of pleasure.
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