One might think that physical books are on the verge of extinction, given all the consternation over ebooks of late. There’s a faction in this debate that predicts that physical books will become something of a rarity as the ebook market matures and the technologies involved become ubiquitous.
In a sleek, shiny, distant future, books may feel old and impossibly large, with too much physical mass and all these fussy pages put to use for the simple task of storing a tiny amount of data, data that is not searchable or copy and pasteable or malleable and interactive in the ways we expect of our data. These devices, one imagines, might seem incredibly blunt to our future selves, unitaskers in world where our gadgets and machines can do all.
And yet there is and will always be some beauty in books. And there will always be people who appreciate that beauty. Even if books eventually become the province of collectors and the peculiar few who fetishize them as objects, there will be attractive qualities to them. They are something like snowflakes or at least stamps, so many and so few alike.
Even now, books revel in their oldness. Rough-cut, or deckle-edge pages are popular flourishes on many editions. And beneath dust jackets are canvas covered boards, often with embossed lettering and archaic-looking monograms.
The deckle edge dates back to a time when you used to need a knife to read a book. Those rough edges simulate the look of pages that have been sliced open by the reader. The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. The reader then sliced open the folds.*
Paper knives, variants of letter openers, were used for this purpose. Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, which speaks directly to the reader and describes the reader’s experience reading the novel, makes extensive reference to these literary knives:
This volume’s pages are uncut: a first obstacle opposing your impatience. Armed with a good paper knife, you prepare to penetrate its secrets. With a determined slash you cut your way between the title page and the beginning of the first chapter.
Opening a book can already feel like opening a gift. Armed with a knife and freeing the pages and the story hidden beneath the folds, it becomes something more, “a penetration of its secrets” and an act of discovery, shot through with a suggestion of violence and danger or of the painful gestation of the words themselves.
This act of cutting open pages to read a book has been lost (one imagines the paper knife arrangement wouldn’t go over well with the TSA), and right now, all over the world, people are reading their books on screens and the idea of even opening a cover and turning pages may one day seem odd as well.
This idea of the book as an anachronism may explain the persistence of the deckle edge, which is now created not by the reader with a knife but by leaving one edge of the page untrimmed during the printing and binding process.
Peggy Samedi, an associate production manager, told me that at Knopf where she works the deckle edge is part of the publisher’s “house style” along with certain other flourishes and fonts. It is typically used for more literary-oriented books and they see it as “something that harkens back to an older way.” It rises from the idea, she says, that “not everything has to be smooth and slick.”
Nonetheless, the production department at Knopf regularly fields calls from readers who complain about the ragged edges, assuming they are a mistake.
If you look closely at a deckle edge, even if you are looking at two copies of the same book, you’ll see slight variations in the edges. And from title to title and publisher to publisher, the quality and pattern of the edges varies more extensively, from a tight saw-tooth, when looking from the top of the book down the edge of the pages, to a more free-form ragged look. The deckle edge varies, not because it is made by hand, but because the machinery for making books varies slightly from factory to factory.
Perhaps this deckle edge is a way for publishers to prepare for the inevitable. As ebooks and ereaders contrive to make the reading process as simple as pushing a button, physical books will regress to older and older forms, so as to appeal more to the antiquated among us who still prefer them to their digital doppelgangers. Deckle-edges will prevail, uncut pages will re-emerge, embossing will become more elaborate.
In time it will be said, to own a book is to be a purist, and these are the books that purists will prefer.
*A reader wrote in with a correction/clarification to the above:
“There are two kinds of rough edges one can find in older books.
The deckle edge is an artifact of papermaking, in which the paper fiber seeps under the “deckle” (the wooden frame placed on top of a screen used to drain the slurry of fiber and water). Even before machine-made paper, the deckle edge was sometimes trimmed, sometimes not. From what I can tell, there wasn’t a sensibility about it before the advent of machine-made paper.
The separate issue of “unopened” (not “uncut”) pages has to do with the folding of a printed sheet, the signature, into the final book. Printers could, and often did, trim the edges and remove either the folded part of the signature there as well as the deckle edge. Or not. I’ve talked with book historians, and I can’t find a reason why some books had unopened pages and others not.
In any case, it results in two kinds of rough edges. The deckle edge as a result of the artifact of papermaking; and the unopened edge after being cut with a knife, which results from a decision made during binding. You can see the difference in examining a book, as the deckle edge is feathered and soft, while a knife-cut edge is rough and can be jagged. (It also depends on the “grain,” or the predominant direction in which the fibers are oriented, which affects how paper curls or stays straight, too. Books are usually printed with the grain perpendicular to the spine, so the pages don’t curl inward, but that results in a very jagged edge when the pages are cut.)”
[Image credit: Horia Varlan]
I don’t know. The Yellow Birds UK cover does have Emmy winning actor Damian Lewis’ blurb on the front. That made my wife want to read it. I’d like to think that blurb exists solely to blur the line between reality and fiction. It’s the equivalent of having Martin Sheen blurb presidential biographies. Whatever sells more books.
I like the US cover of Arcadia better. The UK version is a little too kiddie objectifying for me.
I like that the UK covers resisit the rediculous sub-title of’ a nove’ on every other book, or maybe they just hide it better.
Anyone else notice that the UK covers of both Fobbit and Billy Lynn tout each book as the “Catch-22” of the Iraq War?
Is the UK cover of Arcadia a Sally Mann photo?
The Billy Lynn covers are the best of this bunch.
ridiculous, that is, I was typing too fast.
I hate all of those except for the UK Homes and the UK Semple.
And I like the US Heti.
The UK FOBBIT cover shamelessly rips off posters for the movies MASH and Full Metal Jacket. I mean _shamelessly_. Not only does that make the cover an automatic loser, but whoever designed it should be fired.
I find most all of these covers to be bland, aesthetically weak, and unattractive. A good cover can sell a book and even add to the overall reading experience by providing a memorable visual reference but this batch, with a few exceptions, screams boredom.
Canned cranberry never looked so tasty … or menacing!
I want the U.S. copy of “Arcadia” just for the cover. I think I would probably look at the cover a lot longer than I would read the book.
The exploding flowers are supposed to be yellow birds, right? On the UK cover? The petals are very feather-like. I like that one.
The US cover for The Orphan Master’s Son is the paperback cover…
Jonathan: You are right! Here is the hardcover: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812992792/ref=nosim/themillions-20
I still prefer it to the UK cover.
I was amazed to find that the James Herriot series ( ALL THINGS BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL, etc.) about a Yorkshire veteranarian were covered with Yorkshire landscapes in the USA, but boffoed (animal kicking-ass cartooned) ) in the U.K. .
Quite a cultural diff.!
I so wish the US version of the Round House cover was the same as UK! It is so much better? I mean, what even is that supposed to be/represent on the US cover? Shards of?
What’s with the almost verbatum blurbs from Karl Marlantes and Publisher’s Weekly for Fobbit and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk? From Marlantes for the Fountain novel: “The Catch-22 of the Iraq War.” From Publisher’s Weekly for Fobbit: “The Iraq War’s answer to Catch-22.” I haven’t read either of these novels, but this seems just…odd.
CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA by Frank Bill
US: http://jacketupload.macmillanusa.com/jackets/high_res/jpgs/9780374532888.jpg
UK: http://more2read.com/wp-content/uploads/crimes-in-southern-indiana.jpg
re: Arcadia, compare the UK vs US covers for the original Blind Faith album from 1969. Maybe the UK designers have a Charles Dodson think going?
For me, it’s about half better U.S. and half better U.K. No one country’s cover artists are better than the other’s. Interesting comparisons. Thanks for posting.
Great post. I noticed the same thing as ydm, but wondered if US book covers are for some reason required to specify that they are “a novel” (or “stories” in the case of Dear Life)?
“Judging Books by Their Covers 2013” – enlightening.
The thing about the A.M. Homes covers is that in the UK that tin of cranberry sauce doesn’t carry the same cultural capital. As arresting as the image is, it just would not have struck a chord.
What struck me is just how often the US books have the words ‘a novel’ stuck on after the title. Why?
The Cranberry Sauce makes me want to read that book just to find out why they put cranberry sauce on the cover
Speaking as a UN indie bookseller, I found this comparison fascinating. For years the feeling has been that US covers are much stronger than UK, but that’s no longer the case. It’s as if the UK publishers were so focused on digital for a few years, they dropped the ball on many aspects of the physical book – but no longer. Disagree with the ‘Yellow Birds’ cover – it has real impact in the shop. The US cover of ‘Bring up the Bodies’ is abysmal, a real ‘will this do’ effort – sorry. The UK ‘Alice Monroe’ cover also works well in the bookshop setting strangely. If does look classy on a table jostling with other literary names. Madeline Miller – both poor, but the book sells strongly on word-of-mouth so no harm done. Think the US ‘Arcadia’ cover is better – but other than that and Kevin Powers I think you are spot on…thanks very much for the post…
Of course, that should have been ‘UK’ indie booksellers. I’m sure there are ‘UN’ booksellers, but I am not one of them…apologies…
It’s eye-opening what publishers think readers will and won’t like. When Hodder & Stoughton published the UK version of THE SECRETS OF MARY BOWSER, a novel based on the true story of a former slave who became a Union spy in the Confederate White House during the American Civil War, they put a black woman on the cover. The Norwegian edition also has a black woman on its cover (very different cover). But in the US? Nope.
Major publishers here seem to believe that if you put a black woman on the cover, the book won’t appeal to white readers. (Once a book is already a bestseller, that can change–The Help got black women on the cover on the re-release after the film was out)
I think all three covers have their appeal (judge for yourself http://loisleveen.com/index.php/site/blog-single-entry/judging-a-book-by-its-covers)–but the assumptions behind them reveal what happens when the same story becomes a product for different audiences.
Totally awesome post. I agree with you 90%. I tend to lean towards cerebral covers sometimes too cerebral which squeaks the brain!! Authors have limited say in their design of book covers. As a graphic artist it was a huge challenge for me to let go but ultimately have I trust the publisher’s art and marketing department to know what they are doing and get on with the business of writing. Thanks for sharing this. Cheers!
Overall, I think that the UK covers are more captivating! They are beautiful, with bright colors and details. For the most part when judging a book by it’s cover, I would most likely pick the UK books up off of the shelf over the US ones.
I generally agree with your judgements, except that I find myself not liking photos in cover designs, particularly photographs of people. It gives it too much of a feeling of being a film tie-in or novelization.
Every time I see the US cover of The Round