This is an aside titled 'EW’s Most Inexplicable Listicle Ever' dated 6/25/08
Is this a joke? Entertainment Weekly attempts to list the 25 “best book covers” since 1983. But not a single one of these covers is memorable (and don’t expect to see for yourself from the article, EW inexplicably didn’t include any images to accompany the text.) Really A Million Little Pieces and The Handmaid’s Tale? High Fidelity? Prep?!?!?!?!? Did they just pick up books at random and input the ISBN numbers? This list is like saying Banana Republic and Old Navy have the most innovative fashion designers on the planet. Ok, Jimmy Corrigan is a good cover (obviously,) but if we’re going to throw in a graphic novelist for cool points, why not Black Hole? Chip Kidd is listed several times, but for the worst examples of his work. ICA had an entire wall of his book covers at their Design Life Now show and not one of those is on this list (He’s designed over 800 covers.) Here are some of his better designs. And regardless of what you think of McSweeny’s titles, they do graphic design right: I almost thought about buying How We Are Hungry just for the cover, even though I knew it would annoy me. Chris Adrian’s The Child’s Hospital is incredible both hardcover and paperback. Shelley Jackson designed her own cover and it’s lovely. I rather like the cover of All The Sad Literary Men too. Here are great book covers that came out just in the past year.
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4 Responses to “EW’s Most Inexplicable Listicle Ever”
Posted by: Mallory - 06/26/2008
I wouldn’t attempt to defend the “Prep” cover from an artistic point of view, but when I attended the Columbia Publishing Institute a few years ago the book’s editor was an invited speaker and I remember her and the other people in attendance talking about the cover and how terrific it is. I think it does sort of capture a smug, superficial, falsely cheery sense in a fairly clean way, but the main reason they were so pleased with it, I’m sure, and why it was a huge hit (and ended up appearing in EW here), is that the cover sort of popped out at people in bookstores and got them to pick it up. Sadly, the most aesthetically interesting designs don’t always have that mass draw, and publishers do have to think about the business side of things, sometimes. I’m struggling right now with a couple of authors who have a very specific idea about what they want on their book cover, and it’s just all wrong — fortunately in this case at least, or in my opinion, it’s not a matter of moneymaking potential vs good design, since what they want has neither.
Posted by: Mallory - 06/26/2008
Er, I meant the Columbia Publishing Course, for what it’s worth. Need sleep.
Posted by: Joanne McNeil - 06/26/2008
I really liked Curtis Sittenfeld’s book, but was embarrassed to carry it around as the cover seemed so literal. I hadn’t thought of it in terms of how little say the author has, or how many people the cover needs to please. Thinking again of Eggers, his first book had a utilitarian design and he didn’t start taking chances until he had name recognition. I do think US publishers are too risk averse though. I had this conversation with Alain de Botton when I interviewed him a few years ago. http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_11_010212.php
The cover for his book The Architecture of Happiness was totally modern Dwell-style in England, but had a kind of nostalgic 50s look in the US
http://www.aaa.org.nz/images/articles/alain_de_botton_architecture_of_happiness_cover_72dpi_col.jpg
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/images/current/Naegele2.gif
Posted by: Mallory - 06/26/2008
What a great interview, thanks for the link. I love his comments about his life being problematic always. I hope I can get to that stage of accepting that there are things I will never be able to sort through.
Back to covers, you are probably familiar with this but if not you should definitely check out the Covers blog, run by the Fwis firm. http://covers.fwis.com/
Often really interesting discussions and comments and inspiring assortments of covers from all over the place.
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