One of the first essays I ever wrote was about my room. I was in high school, and the class assignment was to write about a place that was important to us. Five hundred words was expected; I think I turned in three times that. I described everything, from the Renoir poster over my bed to the black-and-white satin musical notes mobile over my desk. I delved into the critical importance of each item on my bookshelf and dresser. I highlighted the “I’d Rather Be Dancing” bumper sticker I’d stuck on my closet door (though I didn’t end up a dancer). A major theme was my love of the color blue, how it calmed and inspired me. I remember working hard to get my description of the way the sunlight filtered through the blue curtains just right.
The piece didn’t have much shape, but with hindsight I see what it revealed: I spent too much time setting up my room! By the end of high school, I did most of my homework at a large desk in my father’s office on the floor above. The rest of my time was spent at the piano or in the family room.
After college, I moved to New York with no furniture. A mattress was easily acquired by dialing an 800 number (I still remember: 1-800-MATTRES, leave off the last S for savings!), and my roommate had a sofa and table, so the only thing I needed was a desk. I spent a lot of time looking for one. I was working in publishing, trying to write in the mornings and evenings, and making very little money. I thought if I had the right desk, everything would be easier. I went to estate sales, church sales, the Salvation Army. I considered one of those lap desks from the Levenger catalog, but was afraid I’d feel like an invalid. One day, complaining to my father about this lack in my life, he told me a story. He’d known a man—the father of a childhood friend—who spent his retirement building the studio of his dreams. His whole life he’d wanted to write and paint, and now he would have the time to do it. As soon as the studio was finished.
This sounded fine to me. Where was it? Were they still friends of ours? Could I rent it?
He designed it beautifully, my father continued; the man was a good carpenter, worked on it for years. Apparently he showed it to my father at one point. He walked him through this perfect backyard work space, but what struck my father was how the man talked on and on about all the things that weren’t quite right yet.
The story appeared to be over.
What happened? I asked.
He died before it was finished, my father said. Never wrote a thing.
I kept looking for a desk, but I can’t say I wasn’t rattled. I eventually found something I liked and could afford at a very depressing estate sale on the Upper West Side: an antique, Mission-style writing desk that probably should have been found by someone able to afford to have it restored. I brought it home as it was, rough and rickety, for $150 and used it for a year. When I left that apartment, I sold the desk to the next tenant because it wouldn’t have survived another move. She worked in publishing, too, and wanted to write, so it felt like the right thing to do.
But I also think my father’s story had taken root. I began to suspect I was too susceptible to the idea of the “writer’s desk” and decided it might be better to do without one. Somewhere along the way, I began to work in libraries. More important, I began to
get work done in libraries. I acquired a laptop, a padded case for it, and a backpack. I carried pens, a notebook or two, a legal pad, and a few books. Very soon I felt like the academic equivalent of the college student backpacking abroad—I was entirely self-sufficient! I didn’t need a private desk and the talismanic power of special objects surrounding me. All I needed was a warm cardigan (summer temperatures can be freezing) and the ability to ignore certain trivial rules (no drinking in the reading room; I’m very discreet with my coffee), and I had everything I needed to work effectively.
Libraries I have loved: the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; in England, the British Library and the London Library; the Charlottesville Public Library; the Miller Center at the University of Virginia; the Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania; Bobst Library at New York University; and in Connecticut, the Essex Library and the Old Lyme Library. These are the places where I worked on the stories of my first collection,
Bending Heaven, and the book that became my first novel,
The Report.
As work spaces, they were not always ideal. The small public libraries, for example, were rarely quiet. I asked a librarian about it once and she said, “Silence is not a priority.” Personal observation suggests that middle school math tutoring is.
The university research libraries have established quiet study rooms, but offenders are hard to police. I once asked a couple of undergraduates to take their bubbly conversation outside, and spent the rest of the day feeling like an old grump, which turned out to be not particularly conducive to writing. Oddballs can populate membership libraries like the British Library and the London Library. One man used to exclaim every half hour or so, “1734! Shit!” The date changed (though it was usually in the 15th or 17th centuries), as did the expletive, then he’d rub his forehead and abandon his books for a while.
People like the date mutterer are colorful when you’re writing well; distractors and the reason you can’t get anything done when you’re not. But the alternative worries me more. I’ve watched friends put a great deal of time into the renovation of houses and the decoration of studies or offices, and in this realm they have triumphed. They have beautiful places to work. But a lot of time has gone into those spaces and when I look at the creative output versus the time spent on preparing them, I remember my father’s story and think, No. Better to make do, sit down, get to work.
There is a passage from
Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety that I remembered recently. A daughter, standing in her father’s impeccably arranged shop, ruefully describes the man who never quite became the poet and scholar he meant to be. A friend of the family says, “Is it compulsory to be one of the immortals? We’re all decent godless people, Hallie. Let’s not be too hard on each other if we don’t set the world afire. There’s already been enough of that.”
Hallie replies, “I know. I sound like Mom. But it does bother me that he never gets past preparing.
Preparing has been his life work. He prepares, and then he cleans up.” (emphasis mine)
Wise words, and ones I read over ten years ago. Yet when I went looking for the passage for this essay, I opened the book to the
exact page. And it was not dog-eared! It was not my copy, but a library book. I checked the edition to make sure the spine had not been cracked to this place by some other nut worried about spending her life only preparing, but it appeared to be undamaged. How did I turn right to it after all these years? The idea must have haunted me more than I knew.
But there is one more reason I work in libraries. I have a section of a poem about solitude by
Jennifer Michael Hecht copied in one of my notebooks:
bestial from not being seeing;
staring out the window with wide, immortal eyes
I’m fairly certain that would be me at home, alone. The date mutterer and the throat clearer and the woman who wears black cardigans (she must have twenty!) and the young man with a spectacularly loud space bar, they are doing me a service. I am grateful to them. God knows what they’re working on, but I see them, and I know they see me. Being seen keeps me sane.
And maybe others feel the same. I’ve just watched a woman come in and sit down in the seat next to the older gentleman who so often works in my current library, the man with the portable word processor, an unusually upright bearing, and wide eyes. He is away from his seat and she has taken one of his books and is browsing through it. Could she know him? I’m hungry and would like to leave for lunch, but I feel I must wait to see this played out. If he doesn’t know her, what will he say? Will he ask for his book back?
He returns and they smile at each other. He says, “Why, where have you been?”
To me, that is worth not having a special pencil cup on my own desk at home.
The UK cover of the Hilary Mantel looks better digitally than it does in real life: the real thing looks a bit too pink and soft, completely the wrong impression for a book that is far from soft.
{And the marketing person in me wanted to tear out my hair when I saw it: you’ve got a novel about the court of Henry VIII with an enigmatic title . . . and you’re not going to do anything to help tell people what and when it’s about? It doesn’t seem to have mattered, since the book was so good that it found its audience, but still, it seemed like the publishers were unnecessarily tying one hand behind their back.}
Love this post and the commentary. Max, do you know of any blogs dedicated to this topic? Would love to learn more about the art of book jacket design.
The American jacket of my last book, The Ice Chorus, nearly derailed my career. Booksellers couldn’t give it away in spite of great reviews. The Brits did a much better job. Because we (Americans) are toddlers when it comes to consuming, jackets are often designed for the lowest common denominator of the demographic target, rather than for the book itself.
Great post. I love book covers. That British Low Boy cover is surprisingly bad. Looks like a mid-90s movie poster about techno-raves or some nonsense. Luckily the US one is great.
Poornima, The Book Design Review blog was a great resource. Unfortunately it is is on “indefinite hiatus” since January. Fortunately, it has a large and wonderful archive of posts.
http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/
The US version of Marlon James is a mess – are two blurbs really necessary? Overall, I’d score it 6-4 in favor of the UK, with the UK winners being the last six – Shamsie, Mantel, Tower, Moore, James and Atwood. Out of all these covers, the UK Wells Tower is my favorite.
Excellent post and thanks for the link, Joel. I wish I’d known about that sooner.
Every week or two I impose my limited knowledge and unfounded design opinions on random books. Oddly, under the same title.
http://burrowpress.com/tag/judging-a-book-by-its-cover/
“If you’ve read this book, you’ll know that the American cover is ridiculous. The U.K. cover, meanwhile, is close to perfect.”
For those of us who HAVEN’T read the book, the US version is really intriguing… the sand, the stairs, the red glow. The UK version, on the other hand, is a line drawing of a white house. On blue. Which tells me nothing. Totally boring and unevocative and unappealing to me.
FWIW, the “K” in Kingsolver on the UK jacket doesn’t bleed off the edge. It does in the image at Amazon.co.uk; it doesn’t on the Faber and Faber site. I always found a publisher’s site to be a more reliable image resource than Amazon.
CKHB, that’s a great point! I agree that it is more enticing to one who hasn’t ready, and that’s what matters after all, potential disappointment be damned.
Joseph, Thanks for the correction; that does make the UK Kingsolver cover slightly less intriguing to me. We hope your BDR site returns from its hiatus some day!
Joel, thank you for the heads up. Will definitely check out the blog you recommended.
I like that the UK cover lets me know immediately what is meant by the title of “The Help.” The US version is one of those pretty, generic things they stick on women’s books.
The UK cover for Let the Great World Spin is inexcusable.
On Wolf Hall, I would have thought that UK readers would be so familiar with the ‘logo’ of the Tudor rose that it (especially when combined with the rough wood texture) would shout historical novel. This seems a good case of there being a real need for two versions.
i’ve just judged a UK novel competition and was surprised by 1) the range in quality of book jacket design – why would publishers neglect such an obvious marketing tool – and 2) yes, how the cover influenced my expectations to the extent there was a least one novel I would not have picked off the bookshelf and would therefore have missed a good read…
I loved your article/list – as an Indie-Bound bookstore owner, I find it interesting/intriguing the way folks pick up a book (when not handsold by their favorite bookseller :) – sometimes I just think they like the cover!
I heard Umberto Eco speak a few years back at a national ABA meeting about the importance of graphics/color/design in books – and I truly believe it should extend to the covers of books – I treasure my signed/first edition books because I also have their covers in excellent shape!
Thanks for the info –
Kathleen
Of the ones I’ve read…
Wolf Hall – agree with Bridget Whelan. Also, the blurb on the flyleaf is impressively well-written, especially given the sheer size of the novel.
The Year of the Flood – the UK cover is one of the best I’ve seen/stroked in ages. What you can’t tell on here is that it’s deliciously embossed. Edibly good.
The Lacuna – Much prefer the American cover for its boldness. It’s a bold novel.
Of those I haven’t…
I’d reach for the UK cover of Let the World Spin before the US one
It’s funny, I’ve seen the UK cover for Let the Great World Spin in Canada and most of the rest I’ve seen the US cover.
I agree completely with Max’s assessment of the Lorrie Moore. I’ve read it and it’s definitely better represented by the UK cover. Perhaps it’s more enticing, but it also doesn’t do the writer justice. Her prose is new and fresh feeling, while that cover seems… old. Screams prairie fiction to me.
@ poornima – Check out http://covers.fwis.com/
They seem to be having some technical difficulties right now, but it’s a great space where lots of designers discuss book covers.
This confirms to me that there is no universal right or wrong in cover design nor a clear distinction according to nationality. We respond individually to a cover in the light of what we know and have experienced and from our own prejudices.
Having worked as an independent bookseller in both the US and UK the difference in covers is always incredibly interesting (and often confusing).
One of my favourite marked differences was with Memoirs of a Geisha. Striking and original in the UK. Totally missable in the US.
On these titles, I agree with Bridget that UK book buyers would instantly be able to judge the content of Mantel’s book. In addition I think they’d be able to instantly recognise it as literary fiction (compared say with the more genre-typical covers of C. J. Sansom’s excellent Shardlake novels).
I agree also that the UK covers on the first too royally suck, whilst the UK Atwood cover leaves the US one standing in about 1992… very disappointing job.
I think that the UK Burnt Shadows cover is OK though, fitting in with other UK covers of a similar ilk. Unlike the US cover it wouldn’t deter male fiction readers over here, a situation likely reversed in The Book of Night Women.
Oh, and a note to say that at a glance, or maybe on gut reaction, I’d have mistaken the Kingsolver for a Salman Rushdie. I wonder which would be less pleased?!
Nice article. Great comments.
I’m just gonna assume from these covers that American publishers don’t trust their readers abilities. Just to reinforce the obvious the American covers state “A novel’. Maybe they should print ‘now turn the page’ at the bottom of every page too.
About Wolf Hall, in my opinion the Canadian edition is rather well done… it points to historical fiction without being too obvious about what it’s about. In my opinion the use of portraits (even truncated portraits) as in the American edition is overdone. I rather like the UK edition, however.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DpbzQjeiDuo/SujR0gNEahI/AAAAAAAAA70/oucfBWVlDto/s320/Wolf+Hall
Another website for book covers is causticcovercritic.blogspot.com.
Excellent article, and some apt analysis. I’ve put a link at http://www.hyraxia.com. I’ve always thought of UK covers as being a little more simplistic, as though it shouldn’t matter, though this is certainly changing.
Really, Sarah? The American ‘toddlers’ did your last book in, not the snobbish, superior attitude of it’s author? *cough* How interesting.
That being said, I’m in the lovely position of being able to travel between the US and Ireland frequently (Ireland generally gets the UK editions), and often get to see the different covers. Sometimes I even wait to buy a book if I know I can get a prettier edition in another country; for example I buy my Flashman novels with the UK cover only…they’re fantastic, while the US ones are utterly uninspired.
Anyway, the biggest UK failure I’ve seen is the cover for Like Water for Elephants. It’s a big, sparkley mess that looks terrible in person, especially when compared to the subtle American one which gives a sense of mystery. Meanwhile, on the US end, their cover for The Book Thief (dominoes?!) is pointless rubbish compared to the UK one: a sweet girl and Death dancing down the road. Each side has their own sins to atone for, I think.
This is a great article! I love the comparisons you chose, and I agree with most of your statements. I never noticed how much a cover appeals or turns me away from a book. How interesting that publishers think their audiences are so different.
Thanks for this post. I am in Melbourne Australia. I have seen BOTH the US and UK versions of Barbara Kingsolver’s THE LACUNA in my local bookstores. I guess it depends on who owns the bookstores! But the indies stock the AUST/UK version. On closer inspection this morning, however, (and after reading this post) I looked more closely. Our Australian cover of THE LACUNA is taken from the UK one, though a little changed. Ours has the same painting, without the ripped text look over it. It also misses out on the ‘bleed’ of the type to the left. Which led me to wonder if the bleed is intentional. I don’t think it is, as nice as it looks. The whole type is off midline. I checked some other pages and I think I shall stand by my thoughts. Right to the source, Faber and Faber, show this as the UK cover http://tinyurl.com/yanoeyk . This is the slightly different AUST cover http://tinyurl.com/yd7r8lg . Nowhere do I see the bleed. Nice as it is, It’s not intentional. BTW, this is the paperback UK cover – different again. http://tinyurl.com/yc5ax6r
BTW, if you want a great example ot cover text bleed, an obvious example is the great cover of THINGS WE DIDN’T SEE COMING by Steven Amsterdam http://tinyurl.com/yjf7jt3 (great little story, too) . The Australian version http://tinyurl.com/dap3hz
agree with the Margaret Atwood and Mantel covers, they are both intoxicating
Strange to see that the covers differ so greatly. I knew that each country has a custom cover but is seems it is little control on how the cover should look. As a designer it seem there is a lot of ups and downs in this selection. The comment about what Umberto Eco said is ever so true. Think of how much goes into product and packaging design. A book is a product and if the cover doesn’t give you any idea about the book, there is a problem.
I like that the American edition of “Wolf Hall” makes the title nice and big, so us dumb hicks know which is the title and which is the author. Of course, seeing the two covers side by side like that, it becomes even more confusing which is which if you’re not familiar with the author, since the orders have been reversed between the two countries!
I count myself among said dumb hicks, of course.
I liked the idea of comparing covers for same book published for different regions. As a book cover designer I enjoy comparing and watching work of other book cover designers. i also do same type of comparison with my optional covers and finalized covers. Thanks for sharing all these b’ful book covers.
Cool article! I love it. To continue the comparisons, I recommend following @CoverSpy and @CoverSpyLondon on Tumblr and Twitter — we’ve got cover spies in New York and London who blog and tweet cover images of the books we catch people reading around our cities. (Also http://www.coverspy.com and http://www.coverspylondon.tumblr.com.) On March 17, both UK and US spies caught readers of The Year of Magical Thinking: http://coverspylondon.tumblr.com/post/454215553 and http://coverspy.tumblr.com/post/454710482
Cheers!