The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Claudia Cortese Discusses Wasp Queen
Poet Claudia Cortese talks about her new book Wasp Queen and Lucy, the rebellious 90s teen whose voice inspired the collection. ...more
Posts Tagged: cover art
What’s in a Name?
If there are indeed an infinite number of universes, it’s nice to think there might be one where all of the books we have come to know bear their original, author-intended titles. For the Paris Review, Tony Tulathimutte pulls back the curtain on the process of book naming to reveal that the title we see is often not given by the author, but generated by a marketing team with a very particular set of conventions and concerns:
...moreThe history of writers fighting for their book titles is extensive and bloody; so powerful is the publisher’s veto that not even Toni Morrison, fresh off her Nobel win, got to keep her preferred title for Paradise, which was War.
Books as Beautiful Objects
Perhaps some buyers do judge books by their covers. A designer has been turning classic literature into beautiful objects. Coralie Bickford-Smith, a London-based book jacket designer for Penguin, convinced the publisher to begin a line of books with traditional cloth covers and stunning jacket designs, turning the book into a object of aesthetic desire as much as a practical way to read a story.
...moreCover Art of Pre-War Germany
One of the many crimes that took place in Nazi Germany was the burning of books. Before World War II, Weimar-era Germany had a history of publishing beautiful books, many that ended up burned by fanatics. The Daily Beast takes a look at some of the covers from the era.
...moreJudging by the Cover
Covers not only stage an interaction between word and image, printed matter and visual representation, they also broker various connections among reader, designer, editor, publisher, and bookseller.
Using Peter Mendelsund’s amazing books Cover and What We See When We Read as a jumping-off point, and invoking covers of books like Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, David J.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Rigoberto González
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Rigoberto González about his new book Our Lady of the Crossword, cover image censorship, and the BP oil disaster. ...more
Choose Your Own Cover Art
It’s well-known by the literary crowd that authors don’t get to choose the artwork for their book covers. Except when they do, as in the case of Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird Hill, who convinced her publisher to use Sheena Rose’s painting “Too Much Makeup” as her cover:
...moreI shrieked with joy when I saw the galleys of The Star Side of Bird Hill earlier this year.
Baby Horror
Over at Vice, Julian Morgans gets a hold of Tim Jacobus, the guy behind R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series’ book covers. Their conversation touches on prog rock, horror’s allure, and the literary merit of the little horror novels:
...moreWell, they’re not Thoreau, but they’re good.
Weird, Wonderful Mexican Pulp Cover Art
...moreThey featured characters having hallucinations and apparitions; super-strength robots throwing cars on a destructive rampage; jealous gorillas who are furious they didn’t end up with the girl; a thieving woman stealing a piglet under the cover of nighttime; and circus murder mysteries.
The Best Worst Cover Art
Thanks to the Guardian, we are now aware of a little blog called Kindle Cover Disasters. The site collects the best of the worst e-book cover art ever to be copy-and-pasted on a home computer using Photoshop and some stock photos.
...moreStrange Brews
As the associate art director at Knopf, Chip Kidd’s the man when it comes to book covers. Over at the New Yorker, Ronald Kelts looks at Kidd’s latest project, Haruki Murakami’s The Strange Library:
...moreKidd designs books by James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy, Oliver Sacks, and many other top-tier contemporary authors.
Designing the Future with the Past
...moreHolding it in your hand now, we hope it feels familiar and warm, at once reminding you of the great history of The Review, while also giving you a sense that you’re being handed the very future of writing and art.
The Power of Jacket Design
Susan Coll reveals, at The Millions, a detail she added to her new book, The Stager, based on the cover design.
...moreSometimes Judge A Book By Its Cover
Cover designer Peter Mendelsund has released two new books about cover design. Cover collects many of the images Mendelsund has designed over his career and What We See When We Read explores the relationship between cover art and the books behind it.
...moreCover Prices
Printing pricing information on book covers has long been a standard practice to help track inventory. The suggested pricing also helps increase the perceived value of books. The internet, especially Amazon, has changed that perception of value leading some booksellers to question the pre-printed price information.
...moreGreat Book, Amateur Cover
Some of the best self-published books end up with amateur covers. While professional publishers consider every detail of book’s cover, like whether a font should be sans-serif or not base on genre, independent authors lack the experience to do the same.
...moreCover Art Marginalizes Female Authors
The disparity in the number of male and female bylines might very well have something to do with the artwork featured on their books. Cover art informs readers of a book’s contents, and publishers certainly try to manipulate readers, as Eugenia Williamson explains at the Boston Globe:
...moreHarbach’s all-text cover has a hand-drawn, cursive script (for ladies) on a navy blue background (for men).
A Newer, Cuter Approach to Cover Design
Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can sure try. At 22 Words, a six-year-old tries to suss out the plots of classic novels by looking at their cover art.
Wuthering Heights is a bit tricky, but she gets On the Road more or less right!
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