Something New for This Year's Favorite Covers Post

Each year since the BDR started, I've written a "my favorites of the year" post (here are the 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005 lists.)

This year, I've got something different in mind.

I've asked the staffs of three independent bookstores to contribute a list of their 10-15 favorite book covers and jackets of 2009. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they pick. It's a big, big publishing world, so I'm hoping their involvement helps reveal the wide range of fantastic design out there.

Here are the participants and the dates on which their selections will appear:

WORD, Brooklyn, NY: Monday, Nov 30
RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, NH: Monday, Dec 7
The Book Table, Oak Park, IL: Monday, Dec 14

I've run a poll the last two years, and based on the large number of people who voted for their favorite, I think I'll do that again. Perhaps I'll take the top three for each store's list (as voted by you) and put them all into a super duper mega poll.

Does this sound fun?

In Cold Blood, Magnum Collection Edition (and a few others)

BDR reader Cynthia pointed this out to me this morning; it's one of six in the Penguin Magnum Collection published earlier this year. Click for a much larger version -- and note the removable sticker. Cool.


Penguin has published a number of different editions over the years; here's a few. The first is designed by David Pelham (1970); the second is uncredited and is from 1966. (The first two images are from Seven Hundred Penguins.) Anyone know anything about the last two?




Illustration by Andy Bridge:


UPDATE: I missed this one, designed by S. Neil Fujita. (Read about the hatpin and Capote's reaction to it here):

On the Road

Apologies for the lack of activity here; I'm traveling on business. Regular posting should resume in a few days, hopefully with an announcement about 2009's favorites of the year post. It's going to be very different, and hopefully entertaining for y'all.

Off to eat more carne asada fries...

How to Be Inappropriate

Design by Alvaro Villanueva

This is so spot on: it really is inappropriate to forgo a belt when wearing a nice pair of trousers.

Not Everyone Loves the New Nabokov Editions

Lots of folks are talking about the John Gall-curated Nabokov redesigns. And well they should -- it's not often that we see an author's entire body of work redesigned by such an impressive cadre of designers.

Three days before Gall posted the series at Design Observer, though, a BDR reader wrote in about the "best Nabokov cover I've ever seen--blows the sh**ty Vintage/Random House motif out of the water." His words, not mine. Here's what he sent in (source here); if anyone's got any info on this cover, please pass it along.

(UPDATE: "(the designer is) Jerzy Faczynski, a well-known Polish ex-pat who not only did book design, but built a few churches, painted watercolors, made prints, and fought wars. He died, I believe, in 1994.")


Here's Carin Goldberg's new cover for Pnin:


Oh, and what the heck: via Wikipedia, here's another:

This Time Is Different

Design by Karl Spurzem

Having just watched the season finale of Mad Men, it's hard not to think of that show's opening credit sequence when looking at this cover for an examination of financial crises.

As series creator Matthew Weiner states (at about 2:15) when talking about the sequence, "American businessman jumps out the window, that is a statement...it's part of our iconography."

Five for Friday, 11.06.2009

Perfect Rigor; design by Martha Kennedy:


Cockroach; design by Albert Tang:


The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights; design by Jaya Miceli:


Too Many Murders; design by Jason Gabbert:


Some dude named Chip Kidd talking about book covers:

Obamanos

Designer credit to come

I know he's just waving.


But here's where my mind went immediately:


Anyone else?

Our Hero: Superman on Earth

Designer credit to come

I'm dying to know how far you can push Superman iconography before hearing from the law firm of Siegel, Shuster & Luthor.

(FWIW, the same author's It's Superman! novel has a trademark disclaimer right on the front cover.)

Random Monday Stuff

Had family in town this weekend. Thus:

Unpublished concepts for Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words. Via The Casual Optimist.

The new Penguin Podcast features Ron Currie, Jr., author of Everything Matters. I loved that book.

Old dust jackets. I mean really old. And most likely, pretty dusty.