Cool Hunting

A new collection of 18 books to be published quarterly over the next five years, Veneer resists easy definition—it's the kind of thing you really shouldn't think to hard about. When we met the founder, Flint Jamison, in Portland a couple months ago, he described Veneer as a venue for experts to write about their area of expertise. It's a 'for geeks by geeks' kind of thing, almost like a curated print edition of blogs. As Flint writes, "It vaguely reminds me of the internet."

The inaugural issue (launching at a gong-style reading with paintball instead of gongs on next month in Portland) includes filmmaker George Kuchar's hilarious take on "French people," Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly in conversation with Ray Kurzwiel on The Singularity and anti-Mormon activists Sandra and Jerald Tanner discussing a famous trial. Each issue will be printed in a different format and you can either purchase the entire set of 18 or buy them individually here.