The Yiddish Policemen's Union, US and UK

Design & illustration by Will Staehle

UPDATE: Greg Kulick was nice enough to write in with the name of the designer. He was also cruel enough to point out a limited edition in silkscreened wood boxes:



Looks like it's lots of ramen this month. I think I need this.

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Michael Chabon's alternate history of the Jewish state: Israel does not exist in the Middle East because Europe's Jews have moved to Alaska.


Don't laugh: this is based on a plan hatched by Harold Ickes, FDR's interior secretary.

The US edition (top) looks great and makes sense to me. It immediately says Pacific Northwest / Alaska. I don't get a sense of anything from the UK cover (below).


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The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Indian edition

Designed by Bena Sareen

Another cover for The Reluctant Fundamentalist, this time from Penguin India. (I've previously posted the US, UK and Norwegian covers.) The designer sent this in, and it's a wonderful reminder to me to start looking beyond North America and Western Europe for book covers and jackets to discuss. Also pretty cool to tell you that according to Google Analytics, this blog has been accessed by readers in 127 countries in 2007. Cool, no? But more importantly, thank you.


Incidentally, I started reading this yesterday and it seems as fantastic as most reviews claim it to be. Pick it up here if you're looking for a good read. And philosophy geeks watch out: early on "we headed off with the group to the port city of Piraeus."

The Black Swan redux

US cover design by Thomas Beck Stvan

I'm really interested in gathering more of your thoughts on books without titles on the front cover, as the few comments left on the original post for The Black Swan are about as diverse as they can be.



One reader loves the UK version w/ no title: "Who needs a title on the cover when you have such a great visual statement? People will stop, pick up the book, turn to the spine, and THERE is the info. So, the publisher has effectively grabbed their attention enough to actually pick up the book."

Another is not so fond of it: "Book design has a job to do: to identify and sell a book...given the job it had to do, I can only see it as a beautiful failure."

I don't know that I agree with the above definition of "book design's job," but I want to know what you think -- about these covers in particular, about books without titles on the cover generally, about what you as designers would like to design, and what you as a book buyer are most likely to reach for in the bookstore.

Salt

Design by Jaya Miceli

I don't know what the collage elements have to do with the story told here, and frankly I don't care. And you can ask why the name of the book is on the cover twice, but again, I don't care.

A definite favorite of 2007. Agree?

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life

Designer name to come.

I'm really anxious to see this in the bookstore; I'm hoping that the cover itself looks and feels like the silkscreen gig poster it seems to be referencing.

Black & White

Jacket design by Abby Weintraub

Amongst the riot of color found on bookshelves in bookstores, black & white can really catch your eye. That's the case with "Black and White," Dani Shapiro's novel about a mother who reaches the heights of the art world by taking (what some view as) exploitative photographs of her three-year old daughter and the rift that opens between them as a result. I was struck by how simple and elegant this cover is; check it out in person.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, US and UK

This book is getting a bunch of attention and lots of "If you liked Blink and Freakonomics, you'll love this" treatment. The US cover (top) is in stores now; I'll try to get the designer's name soon. I don't think s/he will be too happy on seeing the UK cover (bottom), though: there are obviously different boundaries for designing a business title outside of the US, and they're much better boundaries.

UPDATE: Books without titles on the front cover seem to have piqued the interest of several readers, so I've started to tag books with "no title on cover."





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Oh The Hell of It All

Look familiar? It should. Pat Montandon's son is the author of Oh The Glory Of It All, which sports one of the finest covers in recent years. Time for us to do some detective work, though. Glory was designed by Non-Format; Nic Taylor is listed as the designer of Hell. As far as I know, there's no connection between the two. Oh what the hell is going on?



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Design by Peter Mendelsund

I thought of Paul Sahre's cover for The Bill From My Father when I first saw this.


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Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet

Illustration by Chris Wormell, design by Nick Shah

Chapters postulate what will happen should the Earth get one, two, three, etc. degrees hotter, with six degrees resulting in apocalypse.


Two things I really like about this cover: 1) instead of a photoillustration of a swamped city, using an older illustrative technique like woodcut hints at the nasty future while referencing the past. In other words, that Mac Pro ain't gonna work under water. 2) The slightly askew text bobbing on the water clearly nails the premise of the book: shape up or (literally) ship out.