Hey. Here are the book covers that have caught my eye online this month. I hope that they bring a little joy in this very grim time.
If you have the means to buy books at the moment (and I appreciate that is not going to be the case for everyone), please consider supporting your local bookstore. I know a lot of stores are taking orders by email even if they are not answering the phone, and many are offering local delivery if curbside pick-up is not currently an option. The situation seems to be changing daily, so if a store wasn’t accepting orders yesterday, they might be today. We are all figuring this out on the fly.
If you are in the US and don’t have access to a local bookstore, there is Bookshop.org who are trying to provide some financial support to independents. If there are similar initiatives elsewhere, let me know — I’m happy to share the link.
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez; design by Jaya Miceli (Algonquin Books / April 2020)
Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / March 2020)
The Beauty of Your Face by Sahat Mustafah; design by Grace Han (W.W. Norton / April 2020)
Becoming George Orwell by John Rodden; design by Monograph / Matt Avery; illustration by Lauren Nassef (Princeton University Press / February 2020)
I wonder where the eye — particularly the combination of the colour red and the eye — as a symbol of Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four originated? Does it go back to the 1960s and the Penguin paperback designed by Germano Facetti?
I understand that the eye is a short-hand for the surveillance state. But it is almost as if that is now considered the only element of the book worth visualizing (David Pearson’s cover is in an interesting exception in that it cleverly focuses on censorship rather than surveillance).
I haven’t read Nineteen Eighty-Four in years, but my memory is that the infamous “Big Brother is Watching You” poster is a face whose eyes seem to follow you when you move — something I think Matt’s cover above captures quite nicely — not an all-seeing, omniscient eye. The first time I read the novel, I imagined Big Brother looked something like Lord Kitchener / Uncle Sam in the recruitment posters. I was more traumatized by Room 101 to be honest… Has anyone put rats on the cover of Nineteen Eighty-Four?
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd; design by Sara Wood (Viking / April 2020)
Los Falcón by Melissa Rivero; design by Adalis Martinez (Vintage Espanol / April 2020)
The cover of the English-language US edition published by Ecco last year was designed by Allison Saltzman with lettering by Boyoun Kim.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker; design by Nicole Caputo (Catapult / March 2020)
I actually read Godshot in manuscript form last year and liked it a lot. It is set in drought-stricken California, but I had Ry Cooder’s soundtrack to Paris, Texas playing in my head the whole time I was reading it.
I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to Nicole who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of last year and bravely shared her story on social media recently. Stay safe, and get well soon, Nicole. :-)
Grief by Svend Brinkmann; design by David A. Gee (Polity Press / April 2020)
David has designed the covers for a number of books by Svend Brinkmann, including Standpoints, which featured on the blog back in March 2018.
Hinton by Mark Blacklock; design by Jamie Keenan (Granta / April 2020)
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke; cover art by Karl J Mountford (Chicken House / April 2020)
Mountford has also created covers for the other two books in the series, Inkspell and Inkdeath. I love these.
A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba; design by Mark R. Robinson; illustration by Carly Miller (Mariner Books / April 2020)
The cover of the UK edition of A Luminous Republic, which Granta is publishing in a couple of months, was designed by Luke Bird. It’s a really interesting contrast!
Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube; design by Michel Vrana (ECW Press / April 2020)
Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran; design Henry Sene Yee (Flatiron Books / April 2020)
This is Shakespeare by Emma Smith; design by Linda Huang (Pantheon / March 2020)
Throat by Ellen van Neerven; by design by Design by Committee / Josh Durham (University of Queensland Press / April 2020)
Absolutely love the updated Cornelia Funke covers.
Me too! :-)