Artist Dawne Michelle Watters has created a set of book jackets bearing fake titles. So now you can fool public transit eavesdroppers (like myself) into thinking you’re reading classics like How to Overcome Nymphomania, Laser Eye Surgery at Home and Fast Track to Prison – Exploring the Many Benefits of Life Behind Bars.
Book jacket silliness
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Judging Books by Their Covers 2015: US Vs. Netherlands
We recently posted a new edition of Judging Books by Their Covers 2015: U.S. Vs. U.K. These comparisons are fascinating -- what does a "little billboard" on a book say about our respective cultures?
I was recently looking at the covers of Dutch-language books and found many titles that I recognized. Despite our different cultures, we share many overlaps in our literary taste. I hoped that I could draw some conclusions about those tastes by comparing U.S. and Dutch-language book covers. After spending way too much time on the task, I conclude that I can't. The comparisons, however, are equally fascinating.
With my tongue in one cheek, I've provided a few thoughts below. You are encouraged to take equally wild stabs in the comments. If anyone has more cultural insight, please do weigh in.
The American covers are on the left, and the covers from the Dutch originals or translations are on the right.
The Dinner is a good place to start as it was first published in Dutch in 2009. I understand the scorched place setting of the U.S. cover. Looking at the lobster on the Dutch cover...I'm thinking of a seaside restaurant in Maine. Maybe it's evoking the feelings that lobsters have when they go into a pot? That's how the tension of the novel feels, like being boiled alive?
A Millions favorite, Stoner. I read the New York Review Books Classics version and it blew me away, so it is difficult for me to say anything that might sound disloyal. However, if I could draw a picture of my face after I read the novel, I would have looked exactly like the man in the Dutch cover on the right.
I had to run this Dutch title through Google Translate to make triple sure that I had the cover of A Visit from the Goon Squad. It becomes "Visit the Thugs" in Dutch, which has a nice ring to it. I'm less clear about what purples evoke to the Dutch that turquoise on the U.S. hardback cover does not? Why one less fret on the neck of the guitar? Google Translate was no help in answering these questions.
Some of the imagery for Freedom is similar, but the covers have very different feels. To me, the lake country in the U.S. cover evokes the gentrified world view of Patty and Walter Berglund. I'm interested in the choice of a flat field -- is it trying to say something similar to a Dutch speaker? If there is an Ornithologist out there, please let me know if the bird on the right speaks Dutch or English.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: wow.
Anthony Doerr's Dutch translation is interesting as the publisher went with the U.K. cover (we declared it "pretty dull.") Maybe the Dutch designer agreed because there are some differences. Most striking are the changes of tint. The girls dress, for example, is much more vibrant on this cover than on the U.K. version on the right. In general, the U.S. cover takes the broader view of the book I read. I wonder if a reader in Amsterdam or London would disagree?
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Books as Objects: Artifacts and Armaments
If you thought books were just to read - to entertain, educate or enlighten - then think again.Macleans Magazine ran a piece recently on a little bookshop in Old Montreal that displays its wares as museum-pieces. Librissime offers Dante's Divine Comedy, "bound in buttercream-white calfskin leather, a hand-chiseled brass rendering of the crossing of the River Styx by Italian sculptor Alessandro Kokocinski on its cover." Priced at $36,200, it "looks best bathed in indirect halogen light." The thinking behind all this is that the prospective customer has already read the book, and now "wants to honour it by turning it into art." If you are indeed brave enough to walk in off the street, and if something on display catches your eye, apparently gloves will be required before daring to touch the "artified memento."At the other, more utilitarian, end of the spectrum, books can be a handy substitute for a weapon. A number years ago I was visiting my friend Doug in Britain. He'd been living with friends in a big old house, and in that life of dilapidated grandeur, a music room of sorts was doubling as his bedroom. I was asleep on a futon at one end off the room; Doug was slumbering on a mattress at the other end. Evidently my snoring became so unbearable that Doug awoke, picked up the closest object - a hardcover book - and with remarkable and unprecedented marksmanship, he propelled the book across the room toward my invisible bull's-eye, clonking me in the head, silencing my snoring, and returning peace and quiet to the South London night.More Books as Objects: Limited Editions, A List of Bookish Objets, Books by the Foot, The Ultimate Prop
Judging Books by Their Covers: U.S. Vs. U.K.
Like we did last year, we thought it might be fun to compare the U.S. and U.K. book cover designs of this year's Morning News Tournament of Books contenders. Book cover design never seems to garner much discussion in the literary world, but, as readers, we are undoubtedly swayed by the little billboard that is the cover of every book we read. Even in the age of the Kindle, we are clicking through the images as we impulsively download this book or that one. I've always found it especially interesting that the U.K. and U.S. covers often differ from one another, suggesting that certain layouts and imagery will better appeal to readers on one side of the Atlantic rather than the other. These differences are especially striking when we look at the covers side by side. The American covers are on the left, and clicking through takes you to a page where you can get a larger image. Your equally inexpert analysis is encouraged in the comments.
The American cover is especially striking, with the bird and skeleton looking like something out of an old illustrated encyclopedia. And the wide black band suggests something important is hidden within. The British version feels generic, with the beach-front watercolor looking like a perhaps slightly more menacing version of the art you'd have hanging in your room at a seaside motel.
New Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions – Akutagawa, Ott, Jason, Brown, Miller, Hanuka
In January I posted scans of a bunch of fantastic new editions of classic books from Penguin with covers designed by famous comic book artists. I'd heard that another batch was on the way, and I finally got my hands on the images so here they are. They come out this fall:Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Cover by Yoshihiro TatsumiWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, Cover by Thomas Ott The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, Cover by JasonLady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, Cover by Chester Brown Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Cover by Frank MillerPhilosophy in the Boudoir by Marquis de Sade, Cover by Tomer HanukaSee the full-size pictures hereSome other notes: I first saw some of these covers posted at the Fantagraphics blog. Tomer Hanuka has a really cool post about designing his cover at his blog Tropical Toxic.