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Ok, so books have words inside of them, that's true, but they're also physical objects (or were, until recently), and sometimes a good book cover or intriguing design can inspire you to pick up a book you'd never look at otherwise. The best covers and designs illustrate something important about the book. And sometimes, they're the only good thing about the book. Anyway, post some good book covers and interesting-looking books here, or talk about ones other people post. Here's some covers to get you started:     the last one is a cover for a book that doesn't really exist, http://www.montagueprojects.com/volumes-from-an-imagined-history-of-animals-architecture
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Dec 31, 2014 03:35
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 11:00 |
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    I picked up copies of the non-Websters at thrift stores a long rear end time ago. The recent Pictorial Webster's is pretty rad. I want to post the covers of Asterios Polyp and R Crumb's Genesis but they are graphic novels and that's probably better left elsewhere
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Dec 31, 2014 05:57
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The Clockwork Orange one is cool because it's (i'm assuming?) a reference to the movie as well as functioning excellently on its own? When did that particular edition come out? The Pictorial Websters looks rad as hell. I want to own that. They could've hosed up that cover in a lot of different ways, too (it's about pictures, so let's put lots of pictures on it!). That's a book cover that says "open me for good things."
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Dec 31, 2014 12:49
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fozzy fosbourne posted:
That first one is wicked, I'd love to have that book just to display it somewhere. Is it any good?
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Dec 31, 2014 20:25
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Some covers for volumes of Satomi and the eight “dogs”    
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Dec 31, 2014 21:44
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Dec 31, 2014 21:47
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Jan 1, 2015 20:58
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Haha that both owns as a cover and has a monkey smoking a hookah on it. I'm trying to imagine what the thought process was there.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:18
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Its weird, some of my all-time favorite books I originally purchased entirely because I loved the covers.  
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Jan 1, 2015 21:44
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 War With the Newts   
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Jan 2, 2015 16:42
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Alhazred posted:
Always wanted to read this. This cover makes me want to read it more. The most recent issue of the New Yorker has a piece by Louis Menand about the rise of the pulp paperback which is very interesting in general and also discusses the way that pulp publishers gave pulp covers to more "highbrow" fiction. The 1984 one is kinda funny: 
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Jan 3, 2015 01:10
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its weird, some of my all-time favorite books I originally purchased entirely because I loved the covers. Do you think you have a cover aesthetic that appeals to you? All of these strike me as being in the same ballpark (though I don't know jack about design)
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Jan 3, 2015 01:11
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Sometimes its not bad to be on the nose: :nsfw: http://i.imgur.com/tODsgnt.jpg :nsfw: 
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Jan 3, 2015 01:13
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Speaking of pulpy covers, I really dig the covers for the Hard Case Crime line of books. I've been known to import British versions of books because of superior cover art (to me, anyhow). Traitor's Blade is a good example. Here are the two side by side (UK on the left):  The same goes for Joe Abercrombie's books because the US covers have just gotten loving stupid:  I read a fair bit of fantasy, so I understand that bad covers are inevitable. That said, I hate when publishers gently caress things up mid-series. The Iron Elves books had visually-striking covers for the first two books, and then a big pile of poo poo for the third. It was kind of sad seeing the author try to be upbeat about it. Of course, they've since gone back and made equally lovely covers for the first two books.    And while searching for these images, I discovered that the artist for the first two did a cover for the third that was used during pre-publication press I guess, and it's pretty damned good: 
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Jan 3, 2015 01:51
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dogcrash truther posted:
I actually bought this book because of the pulp cover:  http://i.imgur.com/h36Idpi.jpg
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Jan 3, 2015 12:42
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It's actually on the inside of the cover but its wonderful. From Blake's "The Book of Urizen"   For an actual front I think the 80s versions of the Virago Modern Classics (especially the Elizabeth Taylor novels) are aesthetically perfect 
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Jan 3, 2015 18:48
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dogcrash truther posted:Do you think you have a cover aesthetic that appeals to you? All of these strike me as being in the same ballpark (though I don't know jack about design) Oh I definitely think I do. I like stark contrasts, winter colors, a single minimalist image, etc. It suggests the kind of reading experience I really enjoy. It also just appeals to what I love in contemporary art. I've also grown fond of covers that are simply the title in a sort of dramatic font.     EDIT: The more I look at my book shelf the more I see its very much a modern trope of publishing. These are all books released within the last year or so    Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 19:35
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ths is the good book cover
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Jan 4, 2015 17:29
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For people who like book covers/designs, Peter Mendelsund's Cover is a good book. He's a well-known book cover designer and has done some great work, including The Flame Alphabet and The Bone Clocks. He also has another book out that talks about design, What We See When We Read.
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Jan 5, 2015 13:52
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  Tschichold
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Jan 5, 2015 15:08
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z0331 posted:For people who like book covers/designs, Peter Mendelsund's Cover is a good book. He's a well-known book cover designer and has done some great work, including The Flame Alphabet and The Bone Clocks. Yowza. What We See When We Read sounds awesome. THank you for the recommendation.
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Jan 5, 2015 16:24
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Here's a book that I picked up because of the cover. It was a great book.
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Jan 5, 2015 17:48
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 Can't really tell from the image but the actual letters are done in a cool metallic that goes from black to the same shade as the others to a darker blue I like gimmikcy covers and often use that as my first point of interest when looking through the library
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Jan 6, 2015 19:12
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I rather like some of the International covers of the Song of Ice and Fire books. They're at least better than the garbage gradient covers that we've been seeing recently.  There are some exceptions though...  
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Jan 6, 2015 19:51
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The whole "series of books forms a picture" thing is nothing new, but there's still something appealing about the recent editions of Clarice Lispector:
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Jan 6, 2015 20:03
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The adaptation of the Persian Poem, The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis. Found this last September on a book run in Chicago at Bookworks. Really nice store, has a lot of old paperbacks. Has some dedicated shelves on beat poets and lit. I was familiar with the poem but this looked like a weird edition of it which is why I picked it off the shelf. After cracking the spine and seeing the paper I could tell this was a special book. The one I found was a first edition, but found some hardcover editions of later printings nearer to home and the paper quality and binding was all comparable. The paperback edition isn't as nice though and you lose some of the rich texture in the illustrations and the paper.    
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Jan 6, 2015 20:14
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That's awesome it's like a less cool cover for Altered Beast I never read the book but found a first edition of The Magus the other day at work and thought it was neat looking: 
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Jan 6, 2015 20:39
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The first burroughs book I ever read was cause it had a snazzy cover. Was not disappointed.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:03
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Wow. That's a deviantart-quality cover right there.
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Jan 7, 2015 17:46
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As a guy who works as a mover part-time, let me just say that books are loving heavy.
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Jan 9, 2015 02:43
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Speleothing posted:As a guy who works as a mover part-time, let me just say that books are loving heavy. My mover told me to get a Kindle. Movers: Killing the hardcover/paperback industry.
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Jan 9, 2015 14:04
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Szmitten posted:My mover told me to get a Kindle. not to mention book covers just ain't the same on a kindle
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Jan 9, 2015 17:44
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Book covers as an art form will probably fade away the same way album covers/booklets got wrecked by CDs and then digitization.
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Jan 9, 2015 17:45
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Ok, a few of these may be reposts, either mine or other's (especially from the King Arthur thread I did). From a 19th-century "exercise book":   From before furries ruined everything:  From back when illustration was a fine art:    And speaking of pulp, my favorite Steinbeck cover: 
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Jan 10, 2015 03:59
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Some more covers I'm particularly fond of:    The Horrifying Presence and Other Tales by Jean Ray
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Jan 10, 2015 06:02
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I literally bought this book simply because I fell in love with the cover, as an introduction to Murakami it wasn't necessarily the best choice I could have made, but drat if I don't still love it.  Even though I own a digital copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, someday I'm going to fork over the money for a 1st edition because it has one of the greatest covers I've ever seen.   And I also really like the cover for House of Leaves and how the interior pages are too big to be contained by the cover, much like the house itself, it is bigger on the inside. 
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Jan 10, 2015 06:19
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a kitten posted:Even though I own a digital copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, someday I'm going to fork over the money for a 1st edition because it has one of the greatest covers I've ever seen. They aren't terribly expensive unless you're looking for a fine copy; The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House are the Jackson books that go for big bucks.
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Jan 10, 2015 06:25
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I hate the font, but this cover has always been particularly striking to me since I first saw it. This was a Victorian era novel. The covers that first drew me to a couple of books. Fahrenheit 451 was already on my list of things to read, but I had never heard of the Great Gatsby or F. Scott Fitzgerald when I happened upon this cover in 8th grade.  
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Jan 10, 2015 07:15
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You like this one? It's ugly, boring and unoriginal. An inexplicable departure from the American cover, a custom work by the author's wife. Thankfully reinstated for the British paperback.  I also like this Gravity's Rainbow cover by comic-artist Frank Miller, apparently at Pynchon's especial request.  The first edition of Gaddis' JR is just beautiful. Big and stately and a perfect foil for the book's content  and there's a joke to the cover for A Frolic of his Own: a Rothko-ish painting by his daughter... when she was 12.  e: also, is hotlinking from bookcoverarchive.com leaching or no?
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Jan 10, 2015 16:52
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Mr. Squishy posted:e: also, is hotlinking from bookcoverarchive.com leaching or no?
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Jan 10, 2015 17:02
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