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TOC Publishing Berlin

The Other Collection is Berlin-based letterpress publishing house. Letterpress Publishing House

01/12/2025

Selected for our collection—because:

"Tenth of December" by George Saunders is the first collection of short stories we’re adding to our library — and it already belongs to the contemporary literary canon. The sociologist Matthew Desmond once put it like this in the New York Times: "Nobody writes like George Saunders. He has cultivated a genuinely original voice, one that is hilarious and profound, tender and monstrous, otherworldly and deeply familiar, much like the American psyche itself. With each of these stories, you feel in the hands of a master – because you are."

✨ The Man Booker Prize
✨ Folio Prize Story Prize
✨ Pen/Malamud Award

01/12/2025

George Saunders is the master of the modern short story. His stories have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 1992. His short story collection "Tenth of December "was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the inaugural Folio Prize in 2013 (for the best work of fiction in English) as well as the Story Prize (for best short story collection). "Lincoln in the Bardo", which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English, was also a finalist for the Golden Man Booker, in which one Booker winner was selected to represent each decade from the fifty years since the prize’s inception. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine.

30/11/2025

Susanna approached the jacket design first by exploring optical illusions, where things are not what they appear to be. With a sharp, deliberate eye, she selected patterns and color, evoking shifting perspectives: three-dimensional waves resting on a contrast of blue-green linen, complemented by pistachio colored endpapers.

This book looks electric.

It was Erik who first saw the chance to push design boundaries much like Saunders pushes narrative. Yet he quickly realised that Saunders’ boldness always serves the story and honors literary craft. He chose Filosofia, a typeface designed by Zuzana Licko, for the body text — based on Bodoni, classic, refined, and perfect. Erik also opened his "dirty fonts" folder. All chapter headings are set in wildly different, playful fonts, creating delightful contrasts that capture Saunders’ spirit.

The book is printed in green ink with a green sewn binding. It might surprise you at first – but give the read a try. After a few pages, your brain will cleverly start to see the type as black.

Set in Filosoﬁa by Zuzana Licko and many other typefaces.

30/11/2025

Selected for our collection—because:

Wolfram Eilenberger’s "Time of the Magicians" is a portrait
of four remarkable philosophers: Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Ernst Cassirer, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger.
Countless books by German authors could, of course, be considered for TOC – we chose this philosophical text. It centers on the emergence of modern thought and follows four men who offered distinct responses to the challenges of their era.
Their life stories provide insight into the 1920s — an era that not only laid the foundations of our modern world but also bears some unsettling similarities to our present day.

✨ Bayerischer Buchpreis
✨ Prix du Meilleur Livre étranger

29/11/2025

Wolfram Eilenberger is an award-winning writer and philosopher. In 2018, he published “Time of the Magicians” (Zeit der Zauberer) in Germany. The book instantly became a bestseller there, as well as in countries such as Italy, and Spain. It has been translated into thirty languages and won the prestigious Bayerischer Buchpreis, in 2019 and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France. His book “The Visionaries” (Feuer der Freiheit) was published in 2023 and described the legendary lives of the four most influential female philosophers of the 20th century during World War II – Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand. 2024 he completes the trilogy with a book about Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault, Paul Feyerabend, and Susan Sontag.

29/11/2025

Shouldn’t a book about New Thinking be set in a new typeface? In 1927, Paul Renner released Futura, promoting it as "Die Schrift der neuen Zeit" — the type for a new age. For this project, we chose a contemporary reinterpretation: The Future by Kris Sowersby. Renner’s Futura was designed for letterpress and its delicate shapes have never been made to look good in water-based offset printing on modern smooth paper.
To find the right balance, we tested six kinds of paper and five different black inks before settling on the final materials.
We felt that the typeface’s precise, uncompromising forms called for greater contrast. We selected Metapaper Rough Air Warm White– slightly harder and whiter, giving the letters a sharper presence.
Paul Renner’s elegant Futura Schmuckelemente was a natural
choice for the book jacket pattern. In its arrangement here it evokes the rich, looped texture of bouclé.
fabric.

A zine-folded poster comes with the book, printed offset
in yellow and black.

Set in The Future & The Future Mono by Kris Sowersby.

28/11/2025

Selected for our collection—because:

Only in the rarest of cases does a novel not only leave its mark on literary history but also forge a new direction. Everything Is Illuminated is one such novel.
Published in 2002, it became an overnight success
when its author was just 25 years old. Jonathan Safran
Foer weaves deep historical and emotional connections
throughout the book, spanning geography and
generations. In doing so, he tells the story of the
Shoah through the lens of the 21st century, bringing
past and present into illuminating dialog.

✨ National Jewish Book Award
✨ Guardian First Book Prize
✨ PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize

28/11/2025

Jonathan Safran Foer, born in 1977, is an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. He graduated from Princeton University in 1999 with a degree in philosophy and literature. After his debut, Everything Is Illuminated, which won numerous awards, including the National Jewish Book Award, the Guardian First Book Prize, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, he published 2005 his second novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Closed, dealing with the September 11th attacks. He is also known for his non-fiction work: Eating Animals, 2009, and We Are the Weather, 2019. His books are published in over 30 languages.

27/11/2025

It felt like an obvious choice to ask a textile designer to suggest a pattern for one of our books. Foer’s meandering
story asks for a special treat, and we asked Paul Smith, a celebrated designer, entrepreneur, and friend, to choose a
cover motif that captured illumination. Paul took the job. The cover itself is a repetition of one drawing, which Susanna
turned into artwork for the letterpress process. It is printed in a bright dayglo red, with silver endpapers, illuminationbeing the operative word.
Vitruv is a slightly mannered play on the classic model by young Berlin type designer René Bieder. The letters in the headlines fall over themselves, making words within words. David Jonathan Ross designed Bild, obviously referencing Germany’s gossipy newspaper.
Set in Vitruv by René Bieder,
BILD by David Jonathan Ross,
FF Real and Haus Stencil by Erik Spiekermann

27/11/2025

Selected for our collection—because:

Reflections in "The Craftsman" have been cornerstones
of our approach. Craft, the sociologist Richard Sennett
suggests, is work undertaken for its own sake,
satisfying our deep longing to lose ourselves in
thought — in German: Selbstvergessenheit.
His unexpected perspective on craftsmanship reveals
how we connect with, relate to, and make sense of the
world around us.

✨ Hegel Prize
✨ Spinoza Prize

26/11/2025

Even someone who has never heard the name Richard Sennett or read one of his books is familiar with his thoughts. Sociologists are rarely famous, even if they are better thought of as “public intellectuals,” as in Sennett’s case. He belongs to the small group of thinkers who coin terms that make it into our regular vocabulary and are essential to describe the modern world. Richard Sennett, born in 1943, founded the New York Institute for the Humanities, taught at New York University and at the London School of Economics, and served as President of the American Council on Work. Over the course of the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labor, and social theory.

26/11/2025

The cover channels the soul of craftsmanship, its pattern drawn from Drillich — (Drill or Drell) the rugged, time-worn fabric once trusted for the workwear of artisans in every trade, and still made today. It carries with it the tactile memory of countless hands at work, embodying both tradition and endurance.
The text face is Century Supra, designed by Matthew Butterick. In legal citations, supra means the source cited
earlier — a nod to one of the central principles shared by typography, craftsmanship, and literature: building on what has come before. Century Supra is Matthew’s utilitarian version of the All-American classic by Morris Fuller Benton and his father, Linn Boyd Benton, designed for Century Magazine in 1900.

Set in Century Supra by Matthew Butterick, ATF Franklin Gothic by Mark van Bronkhorst, and FF Real by Erik Spiekermann.

Full-color offset printing of the
eight-page insert illustrating
the process of handsetting
metal type

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Potsdamer Str. 98a
Berlin
10785

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