A Book Reviewer’s Best Friend – The Synonym Finder

Words, words and more words – these are the all important tools of the trade for any writer. When you get stuck for the right word pick up THE SYNONYM FINDER, a book reviewer’s best friend.

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A Book Reviewer’s Best Friend – The Synonym Finder

Design: Shakespeare & Co.

Design by Jason Booher

Not entirely sure if the humor of this comes across online, but there’s something about the great big heads of the Renaissance’s foremost writers and dramatists on spindly little legs that made me giggle and, more importantly, pick up the book.

Humor aside, though, this is a nice way to fill out the frame without reverting to the all-too-familiar Brady Bunch grid approach:

Authors and Their Cover Designers

Milton Glaser + Philip Roth, Rodrigo Corral + Chuck Palahniuk, John Gall + Haruki Murakami. Essay by Steven Heller (links to a really big .jpg). Via the NY Times.

Alive in Necropolis

Jacket design by Hyunhee Cho
Illustration by Tomer Hanuka

Nope, not a graphic novel. A very well-received debut novel, with names like Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster and Joss Whedon thrown about in reviews, but not a graphic novel.

What do you think, readers? Given their popularity, are we going to see the graphic novel aesthetic on more book jackets? Would this cover make you notice the book laid out amongst other titles, or would you never pick it up (if you don’t like graphic novels)?

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Design: My Sister, My Love

Design by Allison Saltzman
Painting by Martin Mull

I pause everytime I see this book, which means I stand still quite a bit, as this seems to be in every bookseller’s window and on many a “recommended reads” table. Until last night I hadn’t picked it up. I’m not sure why I hadn’t, as the illustration (painting, actually) is the kind of slightly washed-out mixed-media-looking riff on American life I tend to like.

The painting by Martin Mull (yup, that Martin Mull) is a great choice for Oates’ tale of a Jon Benet Ramsey-type murder and of family life that’s gotten very ugly.

Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking (hardcover and paperback)

It’s a shame that Paul Sahre’s lovely work for the hardcover (top) of Aoibheann Sweeney’s debut novel (review here) didn’t make it to the paperback (bottom).

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Memoirs of a Literary Forger

Design by Jason J. Heuer

No surprises here: the cover for a book about forged literary correspondence finds inspiration in correspondence itself. The names at the bottom are Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, Louise Brooks and Lillian Hellman, who are among those whose letters were forged; see some of the letters here.

The last name is Lee Israel’s, the author / forger / twit: “Those letters never misrepresented any large truth…They were fun, and nobody got hurt, and everybody made money.” Nice. More here.

Three Books Having Something to Do with Superheroes, None of Whom is Batman

So this started last week when reader Katie wrote in to tell me about Who Can Save Us Now?, the premise of which strikes me as pretty brilliant: invite 22 contemporary writers to invent new superheroes and spin a quick tale about them in a short story. Today’s SF Chronicle reviewed Superpowers, and then I saw Soon I Will Be Invincible in a shop window while taking a walk after having been laid up for more than a day w/ a bad back, my powers to drink beer and stand up for 6 hours in Chuck Taylor’s listening to Mission of Burma, Sebadoh and Public Enemy proving decidedly *less* than super.

Can we agree that the designer of the UK edition of Soon I Will Be Invincible has superDUPER powers?:

The US edition (design by Chip Kidd; check out the entire cover here):

UK edition:
Putting me in the mind of Superfriends and The Wonder Twins, the US edition:
And thanks, Katie, for this:

God and Gold

Design by David Drummond

If you’re not familiar with David Drummond’s work, you should be; few designers knock them consistently out of the park like David does. And like Henry Sene Yee’s blog, David’s blog is a great place to see how designs evolve; he posts concepts and rejects as well as published work. God and Gold is forthcoming (October 2008); it’s (clearly!) one of the keepers.

Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life

Design and lettering by Steve Snider
Illustration by Douglas Smith

Try not to smile when you see this amongst other books next time you’re in the bookstore. I double dog dare you.

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