The Art of Covers

Some deep part of me was thrilled last week when the cover art for Penguin’s newly released Modern Classics edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory caused such kerfuffle. This wasn’t because of any passionate opinion one way or the other about the cover art itself (for the record, I like it and I get what Penguin were trying to do, but it’s far from being my favourite cover and if I didn’t already own the book the new art wouldn’t entice me to pick it up), but because people were getting worked up over a book. More specifically, a book cover.

In case you missed it, here’s the ‘offending’ art:

Image: bbc.com

Now, of course, I’m well aware that the internet can get itself worked up into a foam of outrage over the stupidest things, and that the anger over this new cover had probably dissipated before it had even built up to a head, but I still thought it was interesting. In this era of e-books, it showed we still care about how our books look, and that cover art – and how covers are designed – still counts for a lot. I think a lot of people lost sight of the fact that this was a Penguin Modern Classics edition of the book (in other words, not really an edition designed for children), and so the cover didn’t have to have swirly, kid-friendly designs or luminous font or images from the movies, or whatever – that’s all been done. Some commentators lamented the fact that the work of Sir Quentin Blake wasn’t used in the design, and that made me wonder ‘what on earth for?’ What would be the point of a new edition if the artwork from a previous edition was used? I think the new cover’s emphasis on superficial, mindless children and their equally superficial parents, plus the weirdness in the little girl’s fixed gaze, suits the darkness at the heart of the story perfectly. When you think about it, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an extremely dark book – which is what makes it an enduring favourite, of course, and it’s also a large part of its cultural importance – and it shows more effectively than any other book I can think of the dangers of fixing one’s gaze and effort on the wrong thing, and how damaging it can be. So, in that sense, the new cover is perfect.

I’m not an artist, and I’m certainly not a designer, and so I don’t have much idea of the thought processes or work involved in creating a cover. Nevertheless, cover art matters hugely to me. I have bought (and probably will continue to buy) books based on their covers; sometimes it works out, and sometimes it decidedly does not. I have often been seduced by a beautiful cover only to find the book inside is not so good, but somehow I don’t mind – the cover is a work of art in itself, and I admire the designers who can make the book look as good as it can while still reflecting the story in the image somehow. It’s not an easy task.

Some of my favourite covers (of books I’ve not listed before, at least) would include the following:

1. The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (Reif Larsen)

Image: sourcesofgeek.com

This whole book is a work of art. Not only the story, but the ‘interactive’ nature of the text itself, which is full of drawings and scribblings and notes and maps, is wonderful. The story of T.S. Spivet (a prodigiously gifted twelve-year-old from Montana) as he journeys across the US to Washington, D.C. in order to collect a prize, is a gem. The edition I have is a large, oversized hardback, a real object in the hand, a weighty and precious thing, and I love it. Even if the story inside were nonsense (which it’s not) I would enjoy this book as a thing of beauty.

2. Tinder (Sally Gardner)

Image: goodreads.com

I have to admit that I haven’t read this book yet; it’s something I’m saving up for a treat, but I already know I’m going to love it. I had the pleasure of hearing David Roberts (the creator of this fabulous image, and also the art inside the book) speak about the process of bringing this cover to life at the recent CBI Conference in Dublin, and it was a joy to watch the different sketches of the cover art and how much sheer graft it took to get it right. This reproduction does the book no justice; it’s a sleek, handsome hardback with a beautiful texture and excellent paper quality – a real treasure.

The fact that I got David Roberts to sign my edition is icing on the cake.

3. Wildwood (Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis)

Image: en.wikipedia.org

This is a huge, thick, handsome book too (I’m seeing a bit of a trend here), and the cover art – as well as the illustrations inside – are sumptuous. Colin Meloy is the author of this book and his wife, Carson Ellis, is the illustrator, which might explain why the book and the art are in such harmony. I had problems with the story itself (it’s rather overlong and somewhat overwritten in places) but one thing’s for sure – it’s a pretty thing, and the art is amazing. It’s the sort of illustration which shows you something new every time you look at it, and I love that.

4. Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (H. P. Lovecraft)

I have the Penguin edition of Call of Cthulhu and its cover art, a ‘simple’ line drawing which reminds me of a stately, portly gentleman being slowly eaten by a strange, octopus-like creature, caught my eye when I was looking for this book. You can get cheaper editions, and you can get less ornate editions, but I wanted this one not only for the cover art (which, for some reason, my blog won’t let me insert here – clearly, the power of the Old Ones remains strong), but also because of the rough-cut edges on the pages. It’s a gorgeous edition and, even though I may never read all the stories in it, I treasure it.

5. Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales (Virago)

Image: rebloggy.com

The contents of this book are the real treasure, but the whole thing is just beautiful. Another sumptuous hardback, it feels beautiful and is produced to a high standard, but it’s the cover – the font, the illustrations, the design and use of space – which really drew me. The stories in this book were originally published in two separate editions – The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, Book 1 and Book 2 – and I had bought Book 1 and was on the lookout for Book 2 when I came across this. Even though it meant ‘re-buying’ Book 1, I couldn’t pass it. It’s one of my all-time favourite books, in every respect.

So, there you have it. What did you think of the Charlie cover? Did it offend or horrify you – or, were you like me and quietly pleased with it? What are your thoughts on cover art in general, and do you have favourite books based on their covers and/or illustrations?

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday REWIND – Klaatu Barada Nikto*

There’s this really cool meme I’ve been seeing on all the best blogs (dahling) over the past few weeks, and it’s called Top Ten Tuesday. It’s hosted by the lovely people over at The Broke and the Bookish, and – I’ve got to say – I’ve been wondering about taking part for a while now.

So, in honour of the fact that I took the plunge back into submitting work for publication yesterday (because it’s the ‘being brave enough to submit’, not ‘actually getting the nod’ that counts), I thought perhaps I’d try this other new thing today.

Because, you know me. I love new things.

Image: marottaonmoney.com

Anyway.

Today is a ‘Top Ten Tuesday Rewind’, which means you have the pick of a long list of Top Ten lists to choose from (the full list is on the Broke and the Bookish website); my choice is number 86 on that list.

Top Ten Books I Would Quickly Save If My House Was Going to Be Abducted by Aliens (or any other natural disaster)

Because aliens are so a natural disaster.

1. Elidor (but only if I can bring all my editions, currently three)

This one should come as zero surprise to anyone who has read this blog, ever.

Image: lwcurrey.com

The book which fed my childhood imagination? The book which gave me my love for medieval stuff? The book which frightened my shivering soul itself almost to the point of insanity – but which had me coming back for more? Yes. A thousand times, yes. I love this book, and so should you.

2. The Earthsea Quartet

Oh, wizard Ged and your wonderful ways! I couldn’t possibly leave you behind. Not even if giant silver humanoid killing machines were smashing through my window. What would I do without the magnificence of Orm-Embar, the calm dignity of Tenar, the terror of the Dry Land? No. I would bring my Earthsea Quartet, and I would try to smuggle in ‘Tales from Earthsea’ and ‘The Other Wind’, too.

Dash it all. I’d just clear off my entire Ursula Le Guin shelf, and have done with it.

image: aadenianink.com

3. Six Middle English Romances, ed. Maldwyn Mills

Image: bookdepository.co.uk

I don’t have a reason for this beyond the following: I am a huge giant nerd; I love Middle English, particularly these six texts, and I can’t imagine not having them to hand; I would want to save them from the huge squid-like aliens with their giant fangs and scant regard for human culture; most importantly, they rock. Seriously.

4. Lords and Ladies

Terry Pratchett has written a lot of books. I would, of course, want to save them all if something with far too many legs was attempting to rip off my head, but I think I would save this one as a representative volume. Mainly, it’s because ‘Lords and Ladies’ is my favourite of the Discworld books, but it’s also because my current edition was a gift from my husband. So, you know. Kudos.

5. The Dark is Rising Sequence

Aha. I see you are on to me. ‘What’s all this, then? Saving trilogies and quadrilogies and that? You’re cheating!‘ Well, yes. Yes, I am. But the ‘Dark is Rising’ books are all in one volume, so therefore it counts as one book. Stuff it, aliens.

image: yp.smp.com

This book is far too excellent. I couldn’t allow it to fall into the hands of an alien civilisation, possibly because they’d eat it and spit it out and that would be that. So, it’s coming.

6. The Little Prince

I have four editions of this. Two in English, one in French and one in Irish. I’m bringing ’em all.

Image: en.wikipedia.org

What would be the point of surviving an alien attack, I ask you, if I leave behind a book which teaches me about the love of a little boy and his flower, or the loneliness of a fox, or the fact that every desert has an oasis at its heart, or how laughter amid the stars sounds like little bells, or what a boa constrictor who has swallowed an elephant looks like? Non. This book is precious. It’s coming.

7. Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales, ed. Christopher Betts/Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales/Alan Garner’s Collected Folk Tales/Grimm Tales, ed. Philip Pullman

This speaks for itself, I feel. Yes, they are four separate books but come on. How can you save Perrault without Grimm? How can you leave behind Garner’s British folktale treasury? How can you expect me to walk out the door Angela Carter-less? It’s not happening.

image: goodreads.com

This isn’t just about saving my favourite books (even though these are all my favourite books); it’s about saving human culture from the ravening maw of destruction. These books are, collectively, a brilliant gem of human culture. Truth. (Also, they’re pretty.)

8. Neverwhere and/or American Gods

I’m beginning to get the feeling that I’ll be eaten like an oversized, screaming hors d’oeuvre by these alien overlords. I’ll be too busy dithering at my bookshelves to bother about running away. Perhaps I should prepare a grab-bag of necessities, just in case?

Image: list.co.uk

I cannot choose between ‘American Gods’ and ‘Neverwhere.’ I can’t! Could you?

Then, of course, there’s the graphic novel adaptation of ‘Neverwhere’ (as illustrated handsomely above), which I also love, and then – horrors! – there’s my ‘Sandman’ collection, which I could hardly bear to leave behind… curse you, Neil Gaiman, for being so talented. You, and you alone, will be responsible for my being chewed up by aliens.

9. What Katy Did/What Katy Did Next

Susan Coolidge’s masterpieces kept me company all through my childhood. I owned a beautiful hardback edition of these two books, all in one volume, which – now that I think about it – I haven’t seen for a while.

I was fascinated by Katy and ‘all the little Carrs’, and the lemonade they used to make and the swing outside their house and the descriptions of their area and Katy’s utter gawkiness and… all of it. Just all of it. I loved these stories as a little girl, and so they’re coming.

I just hope I find my copy of the book before the aliens get here.

10. Whatever Jeanette Winterson I can get my hands on before the killer death-rays start blowing the roof off my house

Yeah. So, I have a problem with Jeanette Winterson, too. Do I save ‘Oranges are Not the Only Fruit’? How can I save that and not save ‘Why Be Normal When You Could Be Happy’? And then, how can I ask myself to live the rest of my (probably, rather short) life without ever casting my eyes upon ‘Sexing the Cherry’ again? I don’t feel life would be worth living without ‘The Passion.’

And that’s before we get anywhere near her children’s books.

Image: harlequinteaset.wordpress.com

I think what we can all take from this exercise is that if aliens do arrive on my fair isle, I shall not survive. However, at least I shall die happy, in the company of my books, and that is more than I deserve.

Happy Tuesday to you.

*Psst! Did you see what I did there?

Recommended Books: Vol. 2

‘Allo!

It’s been a morning of happy surprises for me so far. First among these is: we woke up with electricity this morning, which was a cause for delight. Last night – luckily just as Masterchef, my current obsession, was finishing – our power went. Cue house alarms going off all over the place, gentle candlelight appearing in windows all over our street, and stars popping out of the sky. It was, in some ways, rather lovely.

But all I could think of was: ‘How am I going to blog tomorrow morning sans electricity?’

As ever, my panic was unfounded. Power is restored, all is good with the world.

The other happy surprise is this: I have been published again! My short story ‘Skin’ appears in Issue 14 of the wonderful ‘wordlegs’ magazine – here’s a link – and I am very proud. It’s a proper short story this time, not a flash fiction piece. If you manage to have a read, please let me know what you think!

Hopefully, reading my story won’t leave you looking like this…
Image: goodmojopetcare.com

Alors! On with the blog.

I’m sure anyone who likes to read will have heard of Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke. These men were legends in the field of SF writing, and deservedly so. I want to recommend (pretty much) everything either of them wrote – I have a few reservations when it comes to Clarke – but today, I’d like to mention two books in particular. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, and Childhood’s End by Clarke. Man in the High Castle is an amazing re-think of European and world history, assuming the Allies lost WW2, and Childhood’s End takes us through an invasion of Earth by an apparently benign alien force – but are they as good as they seem? Both books are amazing.

I also love Ernest Cline‘s book Ready Player One. Perhaps this is because I was a young person during the 1980s, because the book makes mention of the culture, movies, video games and fashions of that time, and couples them with a mind-blowingly amazing view of the future. It’s… just… I can’t… Look. Just read it, okay? Good.

I can’t believe I wrote Vol. 1 of this post without mentioning Sir Terry Pratchett. There is no author who has had a larger effect on my reading and writing life. I’ve been collecting his books since the age of 7, and even though I didn’t understand them at that age, I knew there was something worth sticking with. I was right. My favourite Discworld novel (and there are loads) is Lords and Ladies, though I have a feeling this might be because I no longer own my copy of this book. I ‘lent’ it to my doctoral supervisor, many years ago, telling him he’d enjoy it because of the echoes of a medieval story named Sir Orfeo which appear within it. Did I ever see it again? Did I what. The person concerned has since retired, and the last time I asked him for it back, he said something like: ‘No. I don’t want to give it back. Won’t you make me a present of it instead?’ He then proceeded to give me an eyelash-fluttering look, which melted me completely. So, anyway, he now has it. I hope he’s enjoying it.

I also recommend Sir Terry’s series of books for younger readers, known as the Tiffany Aching books, after their heroine. A-Ma-Zing.

Dave Eggers is an author some people have a problem with. I’m not sure why, because I think he’s fantastic. I read his A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius many years ago, purely because the title made me laugh, but his You Shall Know Our Velocity! is also a brilliant piece of work. Also, read Zeitoun, a study of America in the days and weeks after Hurricane Katrina.

Everyone in the world needs to read A Little History of the World, by Sir Ernst Gombrich. I’ve lost count of the amount of people to whom I’ve recommended this book (in real life, I mean), and everyone, so far, has loved it and gone on to recommend it to others. Beautiful, poignant, educational (without even trying), and utterly wonderfully written, I cherish this book.

I have many collections of fairy tales. Unsurprising, you might think. But the most beautiful, and my favourite, is Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales, translated by Christopher Betts, illustrated by Gustave Doré, published by Oxford University Press. Sublime.

I also recommend The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, edited by the marvellous Angela Carter. Angela Carter is a bit like Jeanette Winterson, for me – I can’t pick one book to recommend over the others, because I love them all so very much. My top five would be, in no particular order: The Passion of New Eve, The Magic Toyshop, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, Shadowdance, and the majestic collection of short stories known as The Bloody Chamber.

Also, everyone needs to read William Goldman‘s utterly bonkers and brilliant The Princess Bride. Particularly if you’ve seen the movie, and you didn’t know it was a book first. Get to it!

I love Douglas Coupland‘s books. Most people have heard of his big hitters, like Generation X, but my favourite of his books is actually The Gum Thief (JPod would be a close second) for its minute, and moving, dissection of modern life.

Catherine Fisher is one of the finest children’s authors ever. Full stop. I recommend anything and everything, but especially Corbenic and Darkhenge. When I grow up, I want to be Catherine Fisher.

If I can’t be Catherine Fisher when I grow up, then I’ll be Frances Hardinge instead. Is there a better wordsmith writing for children today? If there is, I haven’t read them yet. I’m currently reading Hardinge’s most recent book, A Face Like Glass, and there are times I literally have to put it down and go ‘Wow. Just… wow.’

Why not try Manda Scott‘s series of books about Boudicca, and Celtic-era Britain? Go on. They’re brilliant.

As y’all know, I used to be an academic. I wrote a thesis. It had a 40 page bibliography. I’ll let you do the maths with regard to how many books can fit into a bibliography that long, but let’s just say, it was loads. Two of the most interesting books on that list are Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women and E. Roger Ekirch‘s At Day’s Close: A History of Nighttime. If  you like stories about crazy medieval nuns and things that go bump in the night, you can’t go wrong with these.

And, after all that heavy stuff, try Jim Butcher‘s extremely fun series about a Chicago wizard, The Dresden Files.

Phew. I need a lie-down after all that. Have a lovely Thursday. Get reading!

Ramblings of a Possible Paranoiac

So, without further ado, I am back in the blogging seat.  Hello!

I had to make some trips to Dublin yesterday and the day before, which explains my absence from the blog; in contrast with the post I made about the city being dank and depressing a few days ago, though, I was glad to perceive a slight improvement in the overall mood of the place.  Perhaps the spirit of a city has a lot to do with the weather and time of day when you make your visit, not to mention your reasons for being there in the first place.  Naturally, if you’re off to visit a friend (as I was yesterday), the whole place will seem brighter.  In any case, whatever the reason, I enjoyed my time in the city a bit more over the past few days; I was, however, still very glad to get home.

 

But now for the paranoia, as promised.   If you own a tinfoil hat, you may wish to don it at this point.

Whenever I’m working on something, no matter what it is, I feel at a certain point during the writing of it that everywhere I look, I see my idea cropping up.  No matter how closely guarded my thoughts are, or how jealously I clutch my metaphorical cards to my metaphorical chest, I can’t help but think: ‘This has all been done.  I’m flogging a dead horse with this idea.’  Does anyone else know how this feels?  The core concept of my WiP was, at the time I first thought of it, quite different to anything else that was leading the market.  In a vampire- and werewolf-saturated world, I thought I’d come up with something just that little bit different.  However, now that I’m finally getting around to writing it, and coming towards the end of draft one, everywhere I look I see similar concepts popping up.  Judging by how long it takes for an idea to go to a published book on a shelf, this trend has been brewing for a couple of years already.  I fear that by the time my own work might be anywhere near ready to bring to the market, things will have moved on again.

Who sets the trends, anyway?  How do they form, and how do they build the momentum to become a wave instead of a drop in the ocean?  I remember when I first approached my old university to undertake my dissertation, I pitched an idea along the lines of ‘Old English meets Angela Carter’, thinking ‘wow, this’ll blow their socks off’; I was met with a disappointed face and my head of subject telling me ‘oh no – not you, too.’  Apparently, practically every applicant she’d met with that year wanted to write about Angela Carter in some way or another.  So much for me thinking I was being utterly unique.  But the funny thing was – I hadn’t known that all my contemporaries were also interested in studying Angela Carter, I had no connections to any other applicant that year, and the Angela Carter link applied across all the variants of English studies into which one could undertake a research dissertation – Carter was being studied by my fellow medievalists, as well as by modern American literature scholars, Anglo-Irish literature scholars, and so on.  For some undefinable reason, she was just on everyone’s mind, all at the same time.

As I came to the end of my research dissertation, too, everywhere I looked I saw boundaries (which was the main point of interest in my work) – everyone seemed to be writing about them, thinking about them and making TV programmes about them.  The concept I had spent three years sweating over now seemed to be part of pop culture, and yesterday’s news.  It was almost disheartening enough to make me give up.  My supervisor said that it was part of being so invested in something – I was thinking about boundaries in texts and culture all the time, so it was natural that I’d see them everywhere I looked – but I always felt it was more than that.  I carried on, and completed the dissertation, and managed to get the degree without being accused of hopping on a boundary bandwagon, but it really did appear that my ideas were not as groundbreaking as I’d hoped.  My once incisive arguments sank into a morass of thoughts contained in a mountain of other dissertations, all vaguely similar, and that was upsetting.

Perhaps it is just as my supervisor said, and it’s true that people will always be more sensitive to ideas similar to their own, because they’re constantly thinking about them.  It’s also true, though, that it’s heartbreaking to see other books with a very similar theme appearing on the shelves just as you’re trying to bring your own to a conclusion – naturally, you’re going to assume ‘why would I bother to continue with this?’  Well, of course I’m bothering to continue because I love the idea, and I love the characters, and I have a story that wants to be told.  Whether anyone will buy it at the end of the day or not is something I have to be indifferent to, in some ways; I can’t let it have much effect on the creative process.

So, am I a rambling paranoiac, or has anyone else experienced this?  I’d love to hear about it.  If anyone has any thoughts on trend-setting, too, let’s have them!  It’s seriously something I have never understood, and would value the wisdom of others.  Are we really all just a hive-mind?  Is it possible to be influenced by trends without even being aware of it?  Or am I just a hopeless lunatic?