Whoops, I had a case of premature publication. Andy was kind enough to update his email with more details of his new book:
" It's true that I have discussed republishing The Decanter, An Illustrated History of Glass from 1650 with its original publisher, the Antique Collectors' Club. It came out in 2004, 2,000 copies that sold out in about 18 months.
The idea is to republish the text as it stands as it has withstood the test of time. I got one date wrong, in the index, which will be corrected. However, the 20th century chapter will be recreated from scratch. Frankly, I wasn't so into 'recent' glass at the time, but really got into it researching and composing the follow-up, 20th Century Glass. So that chapter will be entirely new and expanded: at least doubled, if not more.
So far so good. However, the problem is one of time. Or rather, a shortage of it.
I'm currently totally stuck into writing and composing my new book, Swedish Glass: Six of the Best. This will focus on six of that country's leading designers: Vicke Lindstrand, Erik Hoglund, Goran Warff, Bertil Vallien, Signe Persson Melin and Lars Hellsten. I've been researching it for five years, slowly building up the image banks, now totalling around 10,000+. The format will be similar to 20th Century Glass, in that it based loads of images laid out on evolving timelines.
Again like its predecessor, it will feature museum-quality Unikas, common to all previous studies of the subject, but will also include thousands of lesser, more common pieces. Like The Decanter, it will be subjected to wide-ranging and hopefully rigorous peer-proofing in an attempt to keep mistakes to a minimum.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've really got stuck into it and I'll do nothing else, as it were, until its finished. Only then can I allow myself to think of other matters."
Neil