Judging Books by Their Covers: America Vs. UK

Books as Objects
February 25, 2009 | 7 2 min read

I’ve always thought that British book covers, generally speaking, are nicer looking than their American counterparts, with the latter seeking to target a demographic rather than to dazzle the eye. With this in mind, the following is an incredibly unscientific experiment in aesthetics. I’ve taken as a sample the Tournament of Books contenders whose American and British editions differ. The American covers are on the left, and clicking through takes you to a larger image. Your equally inexpert commentary is welcomed in the comments.

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Both are dark and complex, but I think I like the American one here. It’s the big red 2666 that does it for me, and I’m not crazy about the digital clock action on the British cover.
 
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The American cover wins this one going away. I love the serious elegance of the bent arm and smoky cigarette and the mysterious juxtaposition of yellow and red lights. I appreciate the playful fonts and colors of the British version, but it is treading too far into “chick lit” territory for my taste.
 
 
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Even though I find the color a bit jarring, the boldness of the British cover is something you rarely seem to find in American covers. The American cover meanwhile seems to be trying terribly hard to be interesting.
 
 
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The American cover has a nifty diorama quality to it, but I love the British cover with its bold yet grainy font and its washed out, almost painterly quality.
 
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The American cover is nice enough, but it seems to be begging to be named an Oprah pick. The British cover, meanwhile, is my favorite of this little exercise. The wave motif is Eastern, but closer inspection shows that it is not merely an appropriation of the style. There’s a charming, cartoonish, anthropomorphic quality to the wave crests that I find really engaging. And the colors are terrific.
 
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In this case, its the reverse. The British cover looks like the Oprah pick, while the American cover offers up more mystery. I particularly like the font on the American cover, all pock-marked like that of a 300-year-old text.
 

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.

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Books as Objects Notable Articles

Judging Books by Their Covers: U.S. Vs. U.K.

Books as Objects Notable Articles
March 3, 2010 | 44 2 min read

Last year we had fun comparing the U.S. and U.K. book cover designs of a sample of the Rooster contenders, so I decided to do it again with this year’s batch. There are all sorts of marketing considerations behind these designs, and it’s interesting to see how designing for these two similar markets can result in very different looks. The American covers are on the left, and clicking through takes you to a larger image. Your equally inexpert analysis is welcomed in the comments.


I love the U.S. version here. The line drawing is exquisite and it draws the reader up to the tightrope walker and into the book. In fact, the design is a wonderful visual representation of McCann’s book, which revolves around the story of Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk but is not really about it. I don’t understand the U.K. design at all. McCann’s book is soulful and serious; the U.K. cover says “silly and strange.”

 


The American cover wins again here. The cartoonish, half cut-off head draws you in, while the U.K. version feels more like a movie poster. Although, the illusion of movement in the U.K. design is nice and something you don’t often see on the cover of a work of literary fiction.

 


This time I prefer the U.K. cover. There’s something weirdly sleepy about the U.S. cover. I love the red title script on the U.K. cover.

 


These are both very nice for totally different reasons. The American design is bold, intriguing and eye-catching. The U.K. cover is intricate.

 


This is really a case study in the “exotic,” no? I’m not sure I like either of these much at all.

 


The American version doesn’t do much for me – a little too coy. I love the U.K. version here. I like the idea that you might paint your book cover on the side of a barn.

 


These are both nice and bold, but for different reasons. The U.K. cover gets the nod, though, for the string, for the wavy, watery stencil, and for those horses; for all of it, really.

 


If you’ve read this book, you’ll know that the American cover is ridiculous. The U.K. cover, meanwhile, is close to perfect.

 


I don’t love either of these, but the U.S. cover is better. The U.K. cover looks like a made-for-TV movie, and this book has very little in common with a made-for-TV movie

 


The U.S. cover is muddled and confusing. I love the U.K. cover. There’s something intoxicating about all those things hanging off the vines.

 

Books as Objects Notable Articles
| 44 2 min read
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7 comments:

  1. I agree with all your opinions, especially about trying to be too much. So many American covers have that look about them: nothing offensive to the eye, but looks like something done by a scrap-booker.

  2. I'm definitely with you on the Hensher and the Lahiri, both of which seem really tame. I quickly looked up a few of my other least exciting hardcover jackets on Amazon.uk. Interesting stuff: Paul Beatty's Slumberland, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, and Nell Freudenberger's The Dissident.

  4. It's interesting how different the covers are. It seems most of the American covers are just begging for that "Oprah Book Club" sticker.
    The UK Northern Clemency is hideous.

  6. Pingback: US vs. UK Covers | Bookish
  7. Pingback: cărți și coperți | a matter of catharsis

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Books as Objects

Books Not For Reading, Redux: Su Blackwell’s Book Cut Sculptures

Books as Objects
January 27, 2009 | 1

In one of my first posts for the Millons, a post on books used for purposes other than reading, I mentioned the British artist Su Blackwell and her book cut sculptures. Blackwell’s work is enchanting and I find myself (in week six of a post-dissertation/graduate school illiterate malaise in which I have read nothing, nothing, nothing and now fear I will never read or want to read again – though reading and books have been the defining activity and object of my life until now) drawn again to Blackwell.Blackwell’s work recollects the shoebox dioramas of cut paper scenes that children make in grade school, but in Blackwell’s sculptures all of the two and three-dimensional figures are cut out of the printed or illustrated pages of books and seem to spring out of the book from which they were cut (a single volume is often the platform on which and out of which her little still-life fairytale scenes spring). Occasionally, she incorporates lights into her sculptures and her scenes are often housed in wooden boxes, but otherwise Blackwell’s sole medium is books.While cutting old books apart might seem a bit sacrilegious to a bibliophile, the results are so delicate and beautiful – so suggestive of the other worlds that good books make real – that you’ll easily forgive the iconoclasm. In their surprisingly literal way, Blackwel’s sculptures remind us of the vistas of imagination that art, particularly literary art, allow us to encounter – worlds that are in some sense, Blackwell reminds us, made from such paltry ingredients: ink and paper. In the throes of my ongoing bout of illiteracy, I find this reminder comforting – an enthralling approximation of the readerly places I can’t get to myself just now.

Books as Objects
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Books as Objects

Books as Objects: Drug Mules

Books as Objects
September 14, 2006 | 2

I happened upon this story about a scheme to smuggle drugs into a Michigan prison using library books. From the Muskegon Chronicle:Inmates at the prison in eastern Montcalm County communicated with somebody on the outside, providing titles to check out from the Madison Square branch library on the southeast side of Grand Rapids. The outsider was to check out the books, cut open the bindings, tuck drugs inside, then reseal them. Then, the accomplice would return the books to the library and contact the inmates, telling them which drug-packed books to request.Luckily the plot was foiled before any books could be mangled in its service.

Books as Objects
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