i will not only judge books by their covers, i will also judge you
just because i love books doesn’t mean i’m not a superficial snob sometimes. in fact, if chip kidd did the design for panasonic’s VCR instruction manuals, there’s a chance i’d buy an antiquated machine i no longer have tapes for. but if you’re going to write a book about radical approaches to cartography, you better have a radical approach to your cover art. and crapping out something that looks like the unholy offspring of a color test and a barcode doesn’t really qualify.
rather than saying “read me because i have interesting things to say about the future of mapping shit”—which experimental geography might very well do—this book says to me that the author wouldn’t know radical if it time-traveled from the 1980s and punched him in the face.
how the book design review ever thought this qualified as one of the most well-designed book covers of 2009 is beyond me. however, i do give bdr props for calling out the fact that someone finally did a 1984 cover that doesn’t suck. love that book, love the new jacket. doubleplusgood, indeed.
Tags: bark, book covers, books
I love the title of this entry.
I second that.
It may not say he knows “radical” but does it say he knows “experimental?” Not really commenting seriously, just checking out if the gravatar avatar works.
I like the cover. Seriously. The first duty of a book cover is to get you to pull the book off the shelf, yeah? Done and done.
i don’t think it’s an ugly cover. it’s just not radical. or experimental. things which were presumably the focus of the book. i saw more interesting maps & mountainscapes from stanley donwood’s art for “hail to the thief” (http://home.student.uu.se/hehi1133/htttart.htm) and “kid a” (http://home.student.uu.se/hehi1133/kidart.htm) – and those were just records for some silly british band.
looks like i wasn’t the only one digging on orwell’s new threads: http://www.litdrift.com/2010/01/19/im-not-allowed-to-love-book-covers-but-i-do/
also, ewu’s very own rachel just published a piece on writers & their cover art: http://chronicle.com/article/Cover-Stories/63559/
This would be were I tell you I saw shiny spine on Galapagos: a novel that I pulled from the shelf a Chelsea bookstore when I went to return it only cover is shiny , nice trick, or so it goes, now I buy and read this Vonegutt fellow for the first time Slauthrt huos 9 I put off till next ot last outmof spite.