Trailer Park Tuesday: Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

What was it that Francis Bacon once said? “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” If so, then Bats of the Republic: An Illuminated Novel by Zachary Thomas Dodson is a sumptuous feast--not just for the eyes, but for all the tactile senses. Featuring hand-drawn maps, natural history illustrations, subversive pamphlets, science-fictional diagrams, and a nineteenth-century novel-within-a-novel, Bats of the Republic is a book to have and to hold until death do us readers part. While the plot, a multi-century saga about war and civilization, sounds intriguing, it’s almost secondary to the visual delights of all this book’s hidden nooks and crannies. This is a book book which begs to be read in its “dead-tree” format. Bats of the Republic delivers a solid crotch-kick to e-readers everywhere and I, for one, applaud the work author, illustrator and designer Dodson has done here. The trailer is a good introduction to what waits for us between the covers; and here’s a photo showing the full spread of the feast: