Armchair BEA: A Question of Aesthetics

Today’s Armchair BEA topic is about aesthetics: what we think about the purely visual qualities of books, and also of our blogs. To what extent do looks matter to us? How do they affect our reading experience?

Although I can look past the drawbacks of an ugly or poorly designed book if the content is worthwhile, I am so much happier with a beautiful book package in my hands. I think it’s a fascinating challenge to match the visual and tactile qualities of physical books to the really quite different aural/literary experience of reading, and I so appreciate the work of designers, illustrators, and binders who do this important job. I’ve grown to value the convenience of e-books, too, but sometimes their lack of aesthetic quality grates on my nerves.

Pride and Prejudice Folio — Pride and Prejudice, Folio Society

I’ve written about some of my favorite “beautiful books” in these posts:

The Dark Is Rising
Picturing Jane Austen – Part One – Part Two – Part Three
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Pinocchio

I’ve also had a lot of fun writing about good and bad cover art:

I find blog design to be if anything even more important than book design. There are blogs that I can’t follow or even look at because they are so cluttered, have too many clashing colors, or distract me with flashing things. Plain, unassuming blogs are fine, but I do really like to see a nice design that, as well as facilitating easy reading, also shows off something of the personality and style of the blog author. Here are some of my favorites:

It may be totally unfair, but when a blogger has a visual style that resonates with me, I’m more likely to pay attention to his or her words. I also started enjoying my own blog much more when I replaced my clunky self-made attempts with a custom design that I absolutely love.

This topic is endlessly fascinating to me, so I’d love to know your take on it. Please comment or share your own posts below!

March Magics: Bad cover art

For a final March Magics post, I couldn’t resist Kristen’s invitation to share some of my favorite (for lack of a better word) bad cover art from the works of Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones. One sometimes wonders whether the art department is actively trying to lower sales with their wildly horrific concoctions.

For example, here’s the American cover for Jones’s first published children’s book, Witch’s Business. It’s hardly surprising that she took a while to catch on here, and that this book wasn’t reprinted for over thirty years.

And here’s a psychedelic cover for Pratchett’s first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic. Um….just, what???

From there, things tended to get worse. Creepy, sick-looking covers for one of the funniest and most inventive fantasy authors around. What did she do to deserve this?

And for Pratchett, we got either bizarrely overloaded images or boring clip art with eye-crossing color combos.

Here is what I think is the absolute ugliest cover on a book I actually own. You have to be a really dedicated DWJ fan to buy this one. Oh, and this one too:

Yuck! To take the bad taste away, here are some of the GOOD covers that are out there as well. Thank goodness for these!

And thank you, Kristen, for all the wonderful events this month. I enjoyed it so very much and will look forward to next year.

Author Guest Post: The Lover’s Path

Hard on the heels of the Dante-inspired In a Dark Wood, I had the opportunity to join in the blog tour for The Lover’s Path, which is spreading the word about new electronic editions of a beautiful “illustrated novella of Venice” by author-artist Kris Waldherr. This atmospheric story of forbidden romance is complemented by brief vignettes about lovers throughout history and legend, sensitively portrayed in rich, glowing images. Presented as if it were an artifact from the “Museo di Palazzo Filomela,” with attendant notes, maps, and museum information, it melds history and imagination in a way that will intrigue and delight lovers of Renaissance art and classical mythology.

The original print edition was a deluxe production with removable letters and other tactile features that greatly enhanced the reading experience; the e-book is available in several forms, including from PDF to Kindle to full-color interactive editions. I was curious about how the author found the process of transferring this unique content into a digital form, and pleased that she agreed to share her thoughts. It turns out that to create the e-book, she had to reimagine the whole project — and added much new and unique content in the process. Read on to learn more about her path of design discovery.

[divider]

The Rebirth of The Lover’s Path by Kris Waldherr

Of all my books, The Lover’s Path is one of my favorites. It was also one of my most complex to write, design, and illustrate. The Lover’s Path took a full decade of work before it was finally published in 2005 by Abrams Books as a full color gift book. And now, another decade later, I’m delighted it is finally available as an e-book—a rebirth that almost didn’t happen.

Set in Renaissance Venice, The Lover’s Path was inspired by the true story of a courtesan named Tullia d’Aragona and her younger sister. It included illustrations, artifacts, and love myths from a faux museum called the Museo di Palazzo Filomela. The print book included letters, tarot cards, and other tactile elements. Though I’d obtained digital rights from the publisher in 2012, I couldn’t bring myself to begin work on it. It was too overwhelming. Another road block: the square dimensions of the print book didn’t translate well for e-readers, which are more horizontal of proportion. Was there any way I could make my book more beautiful, more emotionally satisfying, more interactive as an e-book? I couldn’t see how. No matter how exquisitely I designed the digital edition, it wouldn’t be the same.

I was about to consign The Lover’s Path to the halls of Beloved Books of Years Past. We’ll always have Venice, I told myself. Then I realized: the best way forward was a new way forward. This eureka moment gave me the creative freedom to treat the digital book as a separate entity from the print. So hooray!

Here’s how The Lover’s Path has been reborn for a new world: Not only does the digital edition sport a lovely new cover, the text has been expanded to flesh out the story. (The text in the original print edition was kept short because of cost—four color books are uber-expensive to produce.) I was also able to add new “artifacts” from the Museo di Palazzo Filomela in an expanded chapter. Coolest of all, the iPad edition even includes interactive graphics and maps.

As a result, I believe the e-book is a much richer, more immersive literary and artistic experience than the print edition, as lovely as it was. However, what pleases me most is that The Lover’s Path is now a living book, which can be updated at will. For example, I plan to record a sound walk in Venice this summer; this will find its way into future multimedia editions.

Now that the e-book edition of The Lover’s Path is here at last, I am so excited to share it with the world. And remember, to truly love another, you must walk along the lover’s path wherever it may lead you.

Kris Waldherr is the author and illustrator of The Lover’s Path: An Illustrated Novella of Venice, which is now available for the first time as an e-book. She is also the author of Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, The Book of Goddesses, and many other books and card decks. Learn more at LoversPathBook.com.

[divider]

[book-info]

Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week: The Curse of the Terrible Cover Art

As with most popular and prolific authors, Elizabeth Goudge’s books have suffered from their share of terrible covers over the years. What were the publishers thinking? Here are some of my guesses…

Okay, how are we going to sell this new Goudge novel? Cathedral? Clergymen? Forget them.

Let’s focus on that scrumptious actress! I see her as a sort of late Victorian Marilyn type.

Oh, and remember that scene where she really lets her hair down and seduces businessmen in the woods?

No?

Now, we need to punch up the color scheme a bit.

I think that orange and green are really attractive together, don’t you?

That’ll pull them in! And how about adding bright blue and putting in some volcanoes?

There are volcanoes in New Zealand, right?

That dress is to die for. Let’s come up with some more really great outfits.

I think raingear is always so stylish.

Or how about the gamine look?

Excellent colors on that one too, I love mustard yellow and royal blue.

And how about naked? Naked is good, especially if the book is about Puritans.

Now, we’re a bit lacking in the masculine department. Let’s put in some men, but make sure they have grim, forbidding expressions.

Why? Because men are SERIOUS.

And let’s finish off with a spooky sort of paranormal vibe.

We don’t want those kids to be able to sleep at night, do we?

I do hope you’re not put off reading these books by the covers, because really they have very little to do with the contents! Fortunately, there are also some truly lovely covers to take away the bad taste of the ones above. Here are some of my favorites.

Do you have any covers you love to hate? Or that deserve our admiration? Please share them with us, and don’t forget to link up your own EGRW posts on the Intro page.

Beautiful Books: Picturing Jane Austen, Part Three

After a brief hiatus, we’re back to Jane Austen with the third part of a series looking at different illustrated editions of her six novels. (Click here for Part One, and here for Part Two.) Today’s volumes under consideration are not as striking as some of the others, but they have a quiet charm of their own.

The Folio Society edition of Mansfield Park is part of a complete set illustrated with wood engravings by Joan Hassall. This set remained Folio’s standard edition for quite a while, as it was first published in 1960, reset in 1975, and reprinted numerous times since then (mine is the tenth printing, from 1991).

I resisted buying this edition for a long time because I was not so impressed by Hassall’s Austen illustrations. While finely crafted, they seemed to me to lack the wit and verve of Austen’s prose. However, I find that they go quite will with the quieter, more inward drama of Mansfield Park. I am most impressed with the illustrations that play with light and shadow, such as the ones shown below. The lighting of a nighttime interior is very finely rendered in a challenging medium, and the stark black-and-white images point to the moral underpinnings of the story.

The font, Monotype Fournier, is a 1924 version of a typeface originally cut in 1742. It’s a squarish, compact font that gives an old-fashioned feel while being perfectly readable. The page layout is very simple, with no headers, centered page numbers, and continuous running text interrupted by the chapter headings, which lend a touch of visual interest through the different ornaments used to set off the chapter numbers. Together with the similarly ornamented spine and the pretty wallpaper-like pattern covering the boards, this gives it a feminine, domestic quality, more appropriate perhaps for Fanny Price’s unambitious nature than for some other Austen heroines. I find it a very pleasant volume to hold and to read, although a whole set would be a bit monotonous.

The Heritage Press took a completely different approach with Persuasion, Jane Austen’s final novel. With its bright green cloth binding decorated with an Art Nouveau floral design, it seems to be trying to break out of its era into some alternate reality.

The illustrations by Tony Buonpastore (about whom I could find no information) are a bit cartoonish, which sometimes works to their advantage, and sometimes not. Sometimes the sketchy pen-and-ink vignettes appear refreshingly naive; sometimes they just look amateurish. The full-page “color” illustrations, including one double-page spread for Louisa Musgrave’s critical fall, are in fact monochromatic, with one wash of color for each image (various sober tones of ocher and gray-green) drawn on with black ink and highlighted in what looks like white chalk. Here again, the drawing style takes some getting used to. There is more freedom and less fixity than with the carefully composed Hassall engravings; this edition seems to be trying to bring Austen into the modern age by loosening up some of the conventions that have accrued to her works. It’s an admirable attempt, though it doesn’t always work for me.

Care has been taken over the typography, with some nice details. The display font, Elizabeth, is the only one we’ve met so far in this series that was designed by a woman — Elizabeth Friedlander, in 1938. As a modern interpretation of calligraphic tradition, it has a pleasant blend of the traditional and the innovative. The text is set in Bembo, yet another classic book font. It has a particularly elegant, delicate look that harmonizes well with the decorative initial caps, which are daringly indented to the center of the page, directly under the chapter numbers which are rendered simply as Roman numerals. Balancing this are the page numbers and running footers, which are justified to the left and right margins. This gives a more dynamic feel than a purely centered layout, while retaining a classical balance. Although the illustrations are perhaps the weakest among my six editions, the beauty of the presentation redeems this volume.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series; I certainly have, and taking a closer look at my Austen acquisitions made me appreciate them even more. Each different treatment brings out some important aspect of the novels, so as a whole my collection helps to represent the range and depth of this great author. I would love to hear your thoughts about these or any other editions; please let me know if you have a review and I’ll gladly link to it.

Summary of book details:

Mansfield Park
Published by the Folio Society, London, 1960, reset 1975 (1991 printing)
Introduction by Richard Church
Illustrations by Joan Hassall
Set in Monotype Fournier
9 x 6 inches, 378 pages
Printed on Bulstrode Wove paper and bound in buckram with printed paper sides designed by the artist

Joan Hassall’s Austen Illustrations on Jane Austen’s World

* * *

Persuasion
Published by The Heritage Press, Norwalk, CT, 1977
Introduction by Louis Auchincloss
Illustrations by Tony Buonpastore
Set in Monotype Bembo with Elizabeth display
10.25 x 6.75 inches, 241 pages
Printed on cream-toned antique stock and bound in cloth with a stamped design

Beautiful Books: Picturing Jane Austen, Part Two

This is Part Two of my series covering different illustrated editions of the six novels of Jane Austen. For Part One, click here.

My earliest Austen acquisition was the 2007 Folio Society edition of Emma, illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat, which I purchased as part of my membership renewal. This is one of three matching Austen novels issued in that year, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion being the others. I’ve always wondered why there were no more — was the series never intended to be completed? Did the first volumes not sell well enough to continue? Was the artist too dissatisfied with his own work, or have a disagreement with the publisher? I am not in a position to know, but I’m curious.

To return to the book at hand, Emma is a pleasantly compact volume, with a medallion motif encircling the title on the spine, echoed in the publisher’s logo below and a gold-framed oval portrait of the title character on the front cover. This is set off by the wallpaper-like striped paper that covers the boards. The typeface is Bell, a more rounded and open font than Baskerville (which readers of Part One will remember as a popular choice for other Austen editions). It’s a friendly, appealing book, one that promises us a mannered domestic drama with pretty costumes. This suits the popular conception of Austen’s work, and is true to one layer of it, but misses some of the deeper levels.

Seven full-color illustrations were meticulously done in pen-and-ink and watercolor by the Thailand-born, London-based artist. In this gallery he has posted some of his sketches with notes, which are fascinating; among other tidbits of information he lets us know that he was only really happy with one of the drawings from the book, and dissatisfied with his Austen illustrations overall. I actually find his sketches much livelier and more engaging than the finished illustrations. Of these, the parts that I find most interesting are not the highly detailed figures, but the portions that he allows to be more empty and ambiguous: for example the background of the frontispiece, in which Knightley chastises Emma for her behavior on Box Hill. I admire the illustrations’ technical prowess and find pleasure in exploring all the meticulously drawn details of costume and deportment, yet they seem to lack some inner spark of life.

Puttapipat’s illustrations of animals (many of which can be found in other sections of his gallery) are absolutely stunning, but his carefully posed compositions do not quite succeed in capturing the complex human drama of Emma. I find myself wondering whether if he could allow himself to use a freer, more sketchy style it would help the characters to breathe more. He has said that he wishes he could have another go at Austen’s work, and I would love to see him make the attempt.

Another strikingly striped volume on my shelf is Northanger Abbey, issued by the Limited Editions Club in 1971. This is the largest Austen I own, ironically as it’s her shortest and in some ways slightest novel. I think a smaller size would be much more suitable, not just for this reason, or to make the book easier to handle and read, but because it would be more appropriate to the story. Northanger Abbey is a light comedy that one wants to keep close for easy enjoyment, not a weighty tome to keep on one’s coffee table for show. The binding of unusual multicolored striped satin, which the publisher chose as worthy to be “draped over the windows of the finest hall of Northanger Abbey,” I would also find more amusing if only there were less of it.

I do greatly appreciate the beautiful custom-made heavy paper and luxurious letterpress printing within. The typeface again is Bell, and its friendly, open feel is better suited to the comedy of Northanger Abbey than to Emma, which is a more serious and mature book. I find the curved ligatures used for “st” and “ct” to be a bit much, however. Especially when they occur in clusters, as with the example above, they give me the impression of a visual hiccup. I’m also not fond of the display type, Fontanesi, used for the title and for initial caps for each chapter. As far as I can discover, it was designed in the 1950s as a “retro” style, unlike the genuine 18th century Bell and Baskerville. I suppose this was meant as a nod to the mock-Gothic pastiche of the novel, but it ventures too far into circus territory for me. As for the swash capitals used for the page headers — who thought this was a good idea? Well, I suppose for 1971 it all seemed quite restrained.

The highlight here is the abundant illustrations, with twelve color plates in addition to the black-and-white drawings scattered throughout each chapter. The artist, Clarke Hutton, has a fluid and lively drawing style that lends a light comic touch, while in the paintings his strong yet subtle use of color and lighting brings the Gothic elements of the story to the fore. Hutton spent the first ten years of his career in stage design, an experience that shows in his dramatic compositions. I’m glad he put his hand to Northanger Abbey, a book that (though I may wish it were two-thirds of the size) I will certainly enjoy for many years.

I hope you’ll join me for the last post in this series, in which I’ll look at Mansfield Park (Folio Society, 1960; reset 1975; 1991 printing), and Persuasion (Heritage Press, 1977).

Summary of book details:

Emma
Published by The Folio Society, London, 2007
Introduction by Deirdre Le Faye
Illustrations by Niroot Puttapipat
Set in Bell
9 x 6.25 inches, 432 pages
Printed on Abbey Wove paper and bound in cloth with Modigliani paper sizes blocked and printed with a design by the artist

More about Puttapipat’s Austen illustrations on Austenprose

* * *

Northanger Abbey
Published by the Limited Editions Club, New York, 1971
Introduction by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Illustrations by Clarke Hutton
Set in Monotype Bell with Fontanesi display
11 x 7.5 inches, 210 pages
Printed on eggshell-finish paper custom-made by the Mohawk Paper Company and bound in
satin-finish fabric with a leather shelfback label printed in gold

Review on Books and Vines (with much better pictures than mine)

Beautiful Books: Picturing Jane Austen, Part One

In my book collecting this year, I went a little nuts. I already owned Jane Austen’s Emma in the most recent Folio Society edition (illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat), but a few months ago the FS published a new edition of Pride and Prejudice with fabulous illustrations by Elena and Anna Balbusso and I just had to have it. Now I would have two oddly assorted Austens on my shelf. What if I could find completely different illustrated editions of each of Austen’s other four novels, breaking the mold of the traditional uniform set? Would the result be pleasingly varied, or just weird?

I had great fun seeking out these different editions, and except for my first two splurges, none of them set me back more than $20. Here follows my take on each book’s binding, typography, and illustrations. I didn’t find any of them completely successful across the board, but there is something that I love about each one, so I would call the project a success.

Going into detail about all six books was making my post too long, so I’ve split it into three parts. Today, I’ll be considering the 2013 Folio Society edition of Pride and Prejudice, and the 1957 Heritage Press edition of Sense and Sensibility.

First up is my new baby, Pride and Prejudice. With a swashy binding design and glittery gold background (hard to capture with my camera — take my word for it, it’s GOLD) this is a book that’s aiming to make a statement. It’s a bit too flashy for me, and I don’t think it suits the book; with all his wealth, Darcy is not one to spend it in an ostentatious way, and Elizabeth is not a princess swanning around in foamy lace and diamond tiaras. I think that a plain matte color would have been more appropriate, and fewer swashes would not hurt.

Fortunately, this flashiness does not extend to the book’s interior. The typography has nothing outstanding about it, but is quiet and respectable, allowing the text to speak without distraction. The eight full-page, full-color illustrations, printed on textured paper, are the main attraction. I wrote last month about the Balbusso sisters and their work, and what I said then definitely applies here: “The Balbusso sisters bring a bold, stylized approach to the problem of illustrating fiction, which is the question of how to bring out both the visual and the psychological aspects of the story, the outer and the inner.” Figures are carefully positioned for maximum dramatic effect, almost like a staged tableau, while contrasting natural forms and visible brushwork lend life and movement. The Balbussos’ formal sense of composition and careful use of color lead the eye through the image to “read” the narrative embedded within.

Through each page conceived as a whole, we see Elizabeth’s discomfort when dancing with Darcy, her archness when playing the pianoforte in his hearing, her consternation on reading his letter. It’s a masterful visualization of a book that has been interpreted in so many ways by so many artists — on page, stage, and screen — that it might seem impossible to look at it afresh. Yet the Balbussos succeed, and brilliantly.

A quite different and very unusual approach was taken by Helen Sewell with her illustrations for the 1957 Heritage Press edition of Sense and Sensibility. She was the only Austen illustrator I found who seriously departed from a naturalistic portrayal, and who did not try to make her subjects look pretty. I find this highly appropriate for Austen, who, however much we may think of her as a creator of colorful costume dramas, was actually writing about some of the uglier sides of human nature, and — unlike her imitators — spent very little time describing what anybody was wearing.

Sewell’s stark, dramatic images, printed in somber dark green ink, are not comforting eye candy. They can be strange and startling, and some readers may dislike them for that reason. I found them a interesting attempt at portraying what few artists have dared to approach: the disquieting truths and uncomfortable emotions that lurk within Austen’s novels. After all, Sense and Sensibility contains some thoroughly unlikeable characters, and its central struggle between passion and prudence is not quite satisfactorily resolved. Sewell’s primitive, monumental figures lend both gravity and a quirky kind of humor to this edition, suitable for what Stella Gibbons in her introduction calls “a tragi-comedy.”

Sense and Sensibility is also outstanding for its typography. The classic Baskerville typeface was chosen for the text, while a engraving-style calligraphic display font elegantly evokes the period. After the first chapter with its monumental drop capital, chapter headings are pleasingly inset just the right amount, with perfectly proportioned small caps for the first few words. Traditional design elements are infused with a clean, modern sensibility, an excellent foil for the illustrations. These are usually incorporated into the text in various ways rather than being segregated on their own separate pages — as with the top spread above, which portrays Edward’s musings about his choice of a profession (or rather lack of one) in graphic form directly below the appropriate text.

Pride and Prejudice also uses Baskerville for its text, an unexceptionable choice, but has boringly centered chapter headings and page numbers, which are enlivened only by some generic swashes (again). It’s a less sophisticated, less subtle design. Although Austen’s heroines are always striving for balance, it’s not an easy path, and does not involve equally weighted choices; Sense and Sensibility‘s asymmetrical, slightly off-kilter page layout reminds us of this, without saying a word.

Sense vs. Pride: Pleasingly asymmetrical vs. boringly centered.

The binding design for Sense and Sensibility could have been more imaginative; I would love to have seen an artistic design rather than a drab printed paper that seems to have nothing to do with the period or the book. However, I love the typography of the spine, which is again simple, elegant, and perfectly proportioned. I was very happy to add this fine book to my library.

I hope you’ll join me again for more in this series. Future posts will cover Northanger Abbey (Limited Editions Club, 1971), Mansfield Park (Folio, 1975/1991), Persuasion (Heritage Press, 1977), and Emma (Folio, 2007).

Summary of book details:

Pride and Prejudice
Published by the Folio Society, London, 2013
Introduction by Sebastian Faulks
Illustrations by Anna and Elena Balbusso
Set in Baskerville with Trajan display
9.5 x 6.25 inches, 352 pages
Printed on Abbey Wove paper and bound in buckram stamped with a design by the artists

Folio Society page
More images on the Ispot

***

Sense and Sensibility
Published by the Heritage Press, New York, 1957
Introduction by Stella Gibbons
Illustrations by Helen Sewell
Set in Baskerville, display type unknown
9.5 x 6.5 inches, 324 pages
Paper unknown; bound in cloth with printed paper sides

Review on AustenOnly

From Austen to Atwood: The art of the Balbusso sisters

Eugene Onegin

The Handmaid’s Tale

The artwork of Anna and Elena Balbusso first caught my eye in the Folio Society catalog, with their stunning illustrations for two very different books, Alexander Pushkin’s classic novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin and Margaret Atwood’s modern dystopian nightmare The Handmaid’s Tale. Then I noticed that they were the cover artists for two other books on my TBR list, The Goblin Emperor and Hild. And then I saw that they were illustrating original fantasy stories for Tor.com, and producing a new edition of Pride and Prejudice for Folio…quite a range right there.

Pride and Prejudice

What all these illustrations have in common is their formal sense of composition, attention to positive and negative space (often making use of silhouettes), and masterly use of color. Often they mix strong, simplified shapes with brushy passages that bring movement and liveliness to the image.

The Too-Clever Fox

The Balbusso sisters bring a bold, stylized approach to the problem of illustrating fiction, which is the question of how to bring out both the visual and the psychological aspects of the story, the outer and the inner. To this end, they play with the juxtaposition of diverse images, frequently combining human figures with elements from the natural world. Their ability to blur the lines between two realms, while keeping each one crystal clear, is one of their most compelling talents.

Hild

Who are these amazing twin illustrators of everything from Austen to Atwood? You can find some answers in this Folio Society interview. (I like the part where they explain how they started working together — it seems that it was just too confusing for their clients to interview identical twins separately.) As they are based in Milan, much of their work has appeared in European publications. This includes several more illustrated editions of classic English novels (such as Northanger Abbey) for a language-learning line, which ironically are not available in English-speaking countries, though I dearly wish they were.

Northanger Abbey

In a time when so many loud and fast-moving images are competing for our attention, it’s refreshing to find artists who can create a perfectly composed page that is arresting in its quietness. I’ll be looking forward eagerly to their next production, whatever it may be.

You can find many more beautiful illustrations by the Balbusso sisters as well as news and information on their website.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten book covers

http://www.brokeandbookish.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt, sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish, is “Top ten book covers I’d frame as pieces of art.” I love beautiful book covers, so this was a fun list to create! Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order).

1. I love the work of Elena and Anna Balbusso so much I’m posting more about them this Friday. Here’s their cover for Hild by Nicola Griffith.

2. Niroot Puttapipat’s art for Luka and the Fire of Life is just stunning. You can’t appreciate the detail in this small image, nor does it show how it wraps around onto the back cover. Please try to see a copy in person!

3. Trina Schart Hyman’s fairy tale illustrations are so beautiful. I also especially like the hand lettering she creates for many of her covers; it gives them such a personal touch. Here is her Rapunzel.

4. From another fantastic pair of artists, Leo and Diane Dillon, a lovely cover for Monica Furlong’s Juniper.

5. A somewhat biased selection — this is the cover for a book I designed for the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, For the Children of the World. The illustration and lettering are by Gudrid Malmsten from Sweden. (Note: I have the original painting and have actually been meaning to frame it as art!)

6. And somewhere I have a poster with J.R.R. Tolkien’s own artwork for The Hobbit, which I used to have framed on my wall.

7. Here are a couple of newer titles with landscape-based paintings that caught my eye. First is The Colour of Milk by Nell Leyshon; I don’t know the cover artist.

8. And The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky (artist also unknown).

A couple of my favorite Folio Society covers:

9. Peter Suart’s binding design for The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies.

10. And Peter Bailey’s for The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

I could keep going, but I’d better stop there. It was interesting to me to find that there are many covers which I find attractive and effective as book covers, but would not want to “frame as art.” That could be another list all its own. Maybe another time!