Special Topics in Calamity Physics (UK)
The UK version of a book we talked about recently. Someone who's read this will have to tell us if this makes sense.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
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3 comments:
I've read it. It looks lovely in the flesh - the stock of the cardboard cover, the 3D embossing effect on the petals and text - but I can't see any connection with the contents. On the back and spine there are various formulae and a picture of a parrot, too. The formulae fit the "physics" in the title, but not anything in the text, either. I think the designer just likes Chip Kidds cover designs based on art from old tobacco tins, and so did the same thing.
I think it would be really easy for the buyer to think, after reading a description of this book, and then seeing that flower, that this story of a teenage girl really focuses on her coming of age in the physical sense. It doesn't.
I loved the cover of the US version, it included some of the authors artwork, which is also in the book. It had the same cheeky appeal as the book itself.
This uses an old chromolithograph, used on all manner of packaging and posters, not just tobacco boxes such as the one Chip used on "Dreaming in Cuban". And numerous other illustrators and designers haved used this source material, because it's a way to reference dated imagery and avoid copyright problems. Having read only the NYT review, and glanced inside the book, I don't see the connection of this Victorian-looking cover to its contents.
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