Favorite Book Covers

[CrystalGeezer]

 

[CrystalGeezer]

 

[Belligerent Ghoul]

 

[Chickpea]

OK, I'll try my best to limit myself to four posts per day on this thread, CG. I don't have a favorite, but I have many favorites.

Design by Peter Mendelsund, 2012

 

[Detritus]

I love most of Chip Kidd's work.

http://www.chipkidd.com/gallery.html

 

[Chickpea]

Design by Evan Gaffney, 1997

Design by Lloyd Ziff, 1991

Design by Christopher Brand, 2008

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

Penguin's recent reissue of Orwell's 1984 is probably my favourite. The redacted sections are very slightly embossed so they can be read with some slight manipulation. The use of the iconic Penguin design is always welcome, and the design says so much, while saying absolutely nothing. It's brilliantly clever and understated to the point of non-existence.

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

The BBC have produced several series of Sedaris reading to an audience in London. There must be eighteen half hour radio shows by now. Maybe more. They're well worth tracking down from the usual places, "BBC Meet David Sedaris" should get you there or thereabouts.

 

[Chickpea]

Design by Rodrigo Corral, 2010

Design by Jason Ramirez, 2007

 

[Anonymous]

good choices chickpea

 

[Chickpea]

Related:

The Best Book Covers of 2014, chosen by the art director of the New York Times Book Review:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/08/books/review/best-book-covers-2014.html

So happy to see my friend and coworker Rachel on this list.

 

[Uncleskinny]

P.

 

[Chickpea]

My personal favorite cover of 2014 is on that NYT list. It's remarkable in person—tactile, graphic and organic all at once.

Design by Oliver Munday, 2014.

 

[Anonymous]

cool chickpea that shes getting some deserved attention, im currently writing a novel and havnt even thought once about a cover. i mean itll probably surely be awful as most are but its fun all the same. im amazed sometimes at the clever ideas people come up with in design. we have micha here which is an art school and i see so many people do such incredible things with such mediums like shadows on the walls og large buildings or etching in a face on the back of a building with power sanders. i can appreciate but cant come close in terms of graphic design to those guys and gals. did you go to art school? where if you dont mind my asking. im not gonna know a thing about it so i wont be judging.

also i really like updike and love this cover to rabbit run ( i love that this book takes place in the area that i live in )

 

[Chickpea]

did you go to art school? where if you dont mind my asking.

I did, yes. I went to the School of Art + Design at SUNY Purchase. I've been doing this since then.

It's been a long time since I read anything by John Updike. The covers on the first editions of his books were really spectacular.

 

[Anonymous]

nice, very sixties. i have this one but really im into his short stories and early collections. yup dont really know anything about the place except for maybe a name but it could just as easily be something similar or such. i didnt know you did that and am now concerned. dont think im trying to be leading or anything and we can just end this conversation topic if ya want. i will also say that its like next to impossible to keep that zane book in stock without it being stolen unless you keep it behind a counter. i always just let people steal it as it seemed more fun. thats a great profession though. happy with it i must imagine

as an aside which b. ellis book do you like the most. i think his best was lunar park. brilliantly metaphoric on so many levels and he gets to wield a green light saber as he strikes down the evil spirit of his father. the child in me just loved that. i think the child in him did to as he battles three imaginary versions of himself two as children. four if you wanna add "ellis" as the main character.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

I did, yes. I went to the School of Art + Design at SUNY Purchase. I've been doing this since then.

It's been a long time since I read anything by John Updike. The covers on the first editions of his books were really spectacular.

These are the covers I read.

In the late 90s Penguin and others went through this period of reimagining their titles with zoomed-in photos that was sort of lovely. Then EVERYONE started doing it and it got old, but I did like this one. This is the Australian version but if memory serves I shelved this cover many times.

 

[Chickpea]

i didnt know you did that and am now concerned. dont think im trying to be leading or anything and we can just end this conversation topic if ya want.

Haha, no worries, I didn't think anything of it—I like talking about book cover design.

i will also say that its like next to impossible to keep that zane book in stock without it being stolen unless you keep it behind a counter. i always just let people steal it as it seemed more fun.

I've heard that! Her books are pretty hardcore. I guess people are too embarrassed to take them to the cash register! I've seen people with them on the subway tucked inside of magazines or covered with paper. One woman covered hers with post-it notes, which just made it even more obvious…

as an aside which b. ellis book do you like the most. i think his best was lunar park.

Imperial Bedrooms is actually the only BEE book I hated…I like all the others. American Psycho is probably my favorite, but I have a real soft spot for Less Than Zero.

 

[Anonymous]

i get what your saying about imperial bedrooms but i kinda just look at that as the epilogue and just pretend its a continuation/conclusion of lunar park. im a gigantic ellis fan and really love all of them american psycho being my least fav though. i get kinda bored 3/4th's of the way through. by the time id read that book wed already seem some way more disturbing films and other stuff so it didnt shock me at they way it did some. we were the kids who wanted to see the sickest stuff we could and got to. i remember one zombie movie that used real corpses and i think i might have cringed maybe a bit when the shove a long wooden splinter through its eye slowly. italian i think. anyway less than zero is of course fantastic. the informers is a short story collection and some of its really good but i think when the character of ellis put a stack of them on the free table in lunar park he wasnt that far off. im such a fan i went out and bought the dvd again for the insert of downey as clay and use it as my exclusive ellis book mark. im a fan. do you read any amis. they made a really good low budget movie out of dead babies and im reading lionel asbo: state of england which is really really good. ill be reading money next and then then the rachel papers. if you have any reccomendations of his id gladly take them. i spend most of my mad money, god i cant believe i just used that term, so to speak on books. i think im up to like six and a half full shelves with no intention of stopping any time soon. i m ight have a problem