Little Known Facts

I heart this crisp, classic cover. For an interview with its designer, Natalie Slocum, pop over to Huffinton Post Books. 

New Truman Capote Covers

Designer Eric White has reinvented Truman Capote's seminal works for Random House. And they are sick. Particularly the cover for In Cold Blood. His website is full of awesome images. 

The Joy of Books

Clever, cute and shamelessly stolen from the Paris Review Tumblr, as per. 

The Ticket That Exploded

Beatnik crack and the printed form: Calder & Boyars edition, 1968, designed by John Sewell.

More info over at AnOther Magazine.

Hubert Duprat's Insect Art

French artist Hubert Duprat makes sculptures that also make themselves, utilising structural elements of the natural world: crystals in rhomboid formations placed in patterns that emulate or display their natural form; and these below: caddis fly larvae, which create protective cases from their environments. In this instance, Duprat has supplied them with gold and pearls. This makes me go all Attenborough. 

Underground Art

The Tube has been around for 150 years, and the London Transport Museum are celebrating it with an exhibition of its many posters. This devilish one advertising smoking carriages is particularly nice I think. Check out the beautiful subtleties of the blue text.

More info over at Creative Review. 

Depression Rebranded

There has been controversy over Faber's recent 50th anniversary edition of Sylvia Plath's partially autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. The criticisms have mostly centred on how this new cover, complete with red lipstick, compact and joyfully haphazard cursive script, makes the book look too much like 'chick lit.' 

And, well, yes, yes it does. 

This seems foolish for two reasons: 1) It gives the wrong impression of the sentiment or plot of the book, and 2) It's going to confuse the hell out of people who have never read it before. 

Someone wonders round Waterstones the weekend before their trip to Majorca trying to pick out a couple of 3-for-2's to gently read on the beach between drinks and dips in the ocean. They pick up this copy of The Bell Jar. They think, 'ooh, this looks nice. I did like that chocolate book they made of the film with that lovely Johnny Depp and that French bird in. Just pop in the basket....' Then, days later, they are confronted by one of the rawest and most accurate descriptions of depression to have made it into popular literary culture. 

Perhaps this is good, you are thinking? Perhaps it is good to lure people in with the promise of badly written sex scenes and Jane Austin rip-offs. And, like, yeah. Maybs you're right. Totes blates this will attract a different kind of audience to the book and, sure, that can only be a good thing. But it doesn't seem very honest or accurate. In fact, it reminds me of the trailer to The Shining that has been re-cut to make it look like a romantic comedy. Gets in a new bunch of people (and wallets), but not exactly appropriate for the content. 

A more representative cover was in fact already used by Faber and Faber when they took the book up in 1966, by in-house designer Shirley Tucker. The cover and an interview with Tucker are below. So why the U-Turn, Fabes, ehy? 

Duologue – Push It

No man is an Island

Check out this 1984 cover.

Now check out this poem. 

No man is an Island,
Entire of itself;
Each is a piece of the Continent,
A part of the main;
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thy friends
Or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in Mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

– John Donne


(Can you tell I'm putting off working on my dissertation. Some of the info is still managing to osmosis it's way in, like this diagram of Hallin's Sphere about how the press something something... frustratingly reproduced on bubble wrap. I kind of feel like an island right now. Or a sphere within a sphere. A wheel within a wheel.) 

Lianne La Havaz – Forget

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

– Kurt Vonnegut

 

Found sifting through the beautiful images at Colchu. 

Aphex Twin – Jynweythek Ylow

Alt Lit Cover Art

Here is a selection of some of my favourite covers from the Alt Lit 'scene.' They are a mixture of printed books, e-books, chap books and zines. For a more comprehensive list, check out the self proclaimed Alt Lit Library Tumblr, where I got most of these. Just because we live in the digital age doesn't mean we have to neglect the importance and beauty of a brilliant book cover – even if it is only available as a downloadable PDF. 

Lady Lazarus – Sylvia Plath

Fancy something creepy? 

Here's a fucking freaky video for Sylvia Plath's poem Lady Lazarus, read by the author. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing straight like soldiers. 

Google Poem

I type your name into Google

and get several pictures of gravestones

I type in the word LOVE

and red hearts, kisses and I LOVE U’s

fill the screen

I lie on my back and try to imagine our future on my timeline

I click the Your Friendship icon and get onto our shared life

I type FFFFFFFFFFFF

and imagine you touching me

While I’m thinking about this I hold down XXXXXXXXXXXX

by mistake

XXXXXXXXXXX

Kisses on kisses on kisses

My arms are round you from a distance

In the future as you run your hands through my hair

You get up from my screen and kiss me

I’d forgotten the sensation of skin on skin

You can’t Google textures