Here are 16 books that Wordless Books fans have personally recommended if you like
Wordless Books.
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I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
I will remain forever astonished at the epic feat of world-building in The Arrival. It thoroughly pulls me into an immersive experience where I am learning along with the main character how to navigate the new world into which he has immigrated. As he learns, we learn. I find myself so emotionally involved with his success in his hopeful new reality. The art is amazingly detailed and conveys the complex and richly visual world, yet also sets a strong emotional tone that brings us into the action.
What drives so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown. This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey.
THE ARRIVAL has become one of the most critically acclaimed books of recent years, a wordless masterpiece that describes a world beyond any familiar time or place.
Sited as No 35 in The Times 100 Best Books of all time. It has sold over…
I’ve always loved Christmas books. As I’ve gotten older, part of the attraction around Christmas is the nostalgia. Recalling the excitement as a child, the anticipation, but also the people who are no longer with us. When I started out writing, I only ever envisaged doing one book, but a little bit of success snowballed. When I was looking for ideas, I noticed my last Barton book would be released just before Christmas, and The Santa Killer was born. I wanted to write a book like Christie’s where there was the emotions around murder and crime, but also the drama of Christmas. Hopefully it’s sad, exciting, and thrilling but also poignant.
This has it all. Every time I see the cover I think of the house where I grew up and I can picture the scene in the lounge on Christmas morning where I’m sorting the presents into piles for when my grandparents arrive, while watching this on BBC2. One year I got given it as a book, and it was a different experience to read it, but just as lovely.
An activity book based on the animated film of Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. Children of all ages will enjoy exploring the fun and excitement of Christmas with this festive book packed with things to do and make.
I’m an Eisner-nominated and award-winning graphic novel and comics writer, editor, and book packager. I've worked on staff at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Disney Publishing, DC Comics, Nickelodeon Magazine, and Platinum Studios. My sequential art book, The Bramble, won the 2013 Moonbeam Gold Medal for Picture Books, and I created a new way to read comics with BirdCatDog, a 2015 Eisner Awards nominee, that received the 2015 Moonbeam Spirit Award Gold Medal for Imagination, and was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best children’s books of 2014. SheHeWe, the third book in the series, was a 2016 Eisner Award nominee for Best Publication for Early Readers.
In 1997, Peter Kuper knocked my socks off with The System, a wordless book that exposes the underbelly of New York City as an airbrushed wonderland of strippers, druggies, the homeless, dirty cops, killers, taggers, sleaze-balls, muggers, and—oh, yes—there’s a terrorist with a bomb who wants to blow things up. Never was anything so bright and colorful so decadently revealing.
It has been said that the flutter of insect wings in the Indian Ocean can send a hurricane crashing against the shores of the American Northeast, and such a premise lies at the core of The System, a wordless graphic novel created and painted by award-winning illustrator Peter Kuper. A sleazy stockbroker is lining his pockets, a corrupt cop is shaking down drug dealers, a mercenary bomber is setting the timer, a serial killer is stalking strippers, a political scandal is about to explode, the planet is burning, and nobody’s talking. Told without captions or dialogue, this piece of art…
I’m an Eisner-nominated and award-winning graphic novel and comics writer, editor, and book packager. I've worked on staff at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Disney Publishing, DC Comics, Nickelodeon Magazine, and Platinum Studios. My sequential art book, The Bramble, won the 2013 Moonbeam Gold Medal for Picture Books, and I created a new way to read comics with BirdCatDog, a 2015 Eisner Awards nominee, that received the 2015 Moonbeam Spirit Award Gold Medal for Imagination, and was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best children’s books of 2014. SheHeWe, the third book in the series, was a 2016 Eisner Award nominee for Best Publication for Early Readers.
This 2006 wordless book left me open-mouthed in awe. Here’s the idea: cartoonist Trondheim was vacationing with family when he found this discarded comic from an alien spacecraft, and it’s reproduced here just as he found it, tattered pages and all. The word balloons, which point to strangely shaped creatures, contain unrecognizable letters and words—so, to those of us who aren’t aliens, this book is wordless. I think the short comic sequences are supposed to be funny, at least to the alien kids who read them, but I’m not an alien, so I was horrified at what happened to all the cute little creatures from another planet. But okay, I’ll admit it—I also laughed, in that “it’s so awful” kind of way. You’ll laugh, too.
Beaten up, tattered, and weather worn, this volume has crossed through space to become the first extra-terrestrial comic book in print on earth. The language and even the alphabet are alien, but as human readers will soon discover, the themes and stories are universal. These interwoven stories and vignettes start out quite simply, but a darker, more complex side is gradually revealed as alien characters act out very human problems, from peer pressure to intolerance to the challenges of friendship. Beneath it's apparently childlike and catoony style, "A.L.I.E.E.E.N." explores human nature, cruelty and kindness with surprising depth and loads of…
I am a printmaker and book artist and author who is interested in visual narratives. I wrote a book about how to make woodcuts, linocut and engravings titled The Woodcut Artists’ Handbook. My hand-printed limited edition books and art can be found in many collections from the Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New York City. I am an Associate Professor of book arts and printmaking at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada.
I think Die Idee is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the power of the graphic narrative as an extension of the written word. The painter and graphic artist Frans Masereel was born in the Belgian Blankenberghe in 1889. He studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he learned to make wood engravings. His first wordless graphic novel was made in 1918 titled Images de la Passion d’un Homme (The Passion of a Man). The success of this book and those that followed influenced three generations of artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers all over the world.
Text in German. A "book without words" where the illustrations by the author substitute for printed text. Introduction by Hermann Hesse. 83 woodcut illustrations by Masereel. Dust jacket torn at spine and worn at edges. Tanning on boards and endpapers. unpaginated. paper-covered boards, dust jacket. 16mo.
I am a printmaker and book artist and author who is interested in visual narratives. I wrote a book about how to make woodcuts, linocut and engravings titled The Woodcut Artists’ Handbook. My hand-printed limited edition books and art can be found in many collections from the Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New York City. I am an Associate Professor of book arts and printmaking at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada.
I first met Art Spiegelman in a show we were in together at the Morgan Library and Museum in 2014. We became fast friends with our shared love of the work of Ward and Masereel (examples of their work were in the same exhibition) we have since sent each other copies of books we thought the other would enjoy. I recommend Art’s collection of the six wordless novels of Frans Masereel as a great way to get copies of these rare books in a nicely designed box set with an excellent introductory essay by Art titled "Reading Pictures."
From the eve of the Great Depression to the start of World War II, Lynd Ward (1905-1985) observed the troubled American scene through the double lens of a politically committed storyteller and a visionary graphic artist. His medium-the wordless "novel in woodcuts"-was his alone, and he quickly brought it from bold iconographic infancy to subtle and still unrivalled mastery.
Gods' Man (1929), the audaciously ambitious work that made Ward's reputation, is a modern morality play, an allegory of the deadly bargain a striving young artist often makes with life. Madman's Drum (1930), a multigenerational saga worthy of Faulkner, traces the…
I am a printmaker and book artist and author who is interested in visual narratives. I wrote a book about how to make woodcuts, linocut and engravings titled The Woodcut Artists’ Handbook. My hand-printed limited edition books and art can be found in many collections from the Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New York City. I am an Associate Professor of book arts and printmaking at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada.
This is a new edition of Otto Nückel’s wordless novel that was originally published in 1930 with the title Destinyby Farrar & Rinehart. Although this edition is in French with an introduction by Seth Tobocman and an afterword by yours truly, it is a nicely produced hardcover with new information about the life of this mysterious German artist. I would be happy to provide an English translation of my postface for anyone who wishes to email me a request. The book is very readable and demonstrates Nückel’s unique skill of engraving a very poignant visual narrative (on lead blocks).
Aux côtés de Frans Masereel et Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel compte parmi les auteurs classiques du roman graphique sans paroles, un genre créé dans les années 1930 et qui doit tout autant au cinéma muet qu'à l'expressionisme allemand. Dans Destin, un ouvrage époustouflant de maîtrise graphique et narrative, Otto Nückel signe sans aucun doute son chef-d'oeuvre. En 190 gravures sur plomb, l'artiste donne vie à la destinée tragique d'une femme née dans la misère - et ce à quoi aucune tentative ne parviendra de l'en délivrer.
I make prints and visual books. I founded Bridge Press, now in Kennebunk, Maine, 1989 to publish limited edition artist's books and etchings. The name of the press underscores the collaborative nature of book making. Visual books offered possibilities for the continuity, connection, and unfolding of images—each image is complete yet linked to every other through the structure of the book. Books seemed an ideal vehicle to assemble and connect my prints, to order and unfold a sequence of images, with defined and recurrent shapes, motifs, and composition, and to create a setting in which each image is complete yet linked to every other through the structure of the binding or enclosure.
As a printmaker and student of the history and techniques of printmaking, this is my “desert island” volume, the most comprehensive, literate, knowledgeable, and articulate statement on this influential, historically significant, and often overlooked art form. Eichenberg, himself a brilliant and trenchant wood engraver, book illustrator, and political commentator, shows himself to be an eloquent historian, scholar, and interpreter of various printmaking media, not only in Europe and the Americas, but throughout the world, in its long history.
I am now considered by many as the expert on creating allergy-free and allergy-friendly gardens and landscapes. I have lectured on the subject all across the US and Canada, and also in Israel, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. For 30+ years now I’ve been researching the connections between urban landscaping and allergies and asthma. My articles have appeared in dozens of fine publications, including The New York Times, The London Times, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, Atlas Obscura, Scientific American, Der Spiegel, and The New Scientist. I have owned two nurseries and taught horticulture for twenty years.
I own hundreds of books on plants and trees. The two finest books written on American trees were both written by Donald Culross Peattie. His book on Western trees is amazing. When he looks at and writes about a particular tree, he mentions everything about it. What it looks like, where it grows, how big it gets, what it is used for, what animals, birds, insects use this tree. He also mentions in detail how it flowers, sets seeds, grows….he misses next to nothing. Totally recommended!
A lovely reprint of Peattie's 1950 classic with the fine wood engravings and a new (4 page) introduction by Robert Finch. This editio printed on alkaline paper. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
I’ve always had an interest in art, growing up a military brat and constantly moving, left me time to doodle and read. I spent the first part of my life as an art professor and artist. I began writing three years ago when my manuscript was chosen for RWA’s Ramp program in 2021. With my art, my interest leans more towards the bizarre and unexplained. I believe the romance stories I write follow suit, dark and gothic romance my primary interest, but always with spiritual and hopeful undertones. I also write some non-fiction for a local magazine where I live, The Greenville Stroll and on substack a newsletter for romance writers.
This is what fairy tales would look like if they were gothic, so I love this book.
I read it a few years ago and fell in love with it. I purchased the print copy because I wanted the illustrations in front of me to look at too. Almost any story you read comes from a myth or a fairy tale if you deconstruct it, so reading this book keeps your brain tuned into this idea, but you don't need to be a writer to find delight in this book.
Once upon a time fairy tales weren't meant just for children, and neither is Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world- from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters.
This fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks could only have been collected by the unique and much-missed Angela Carter.…
