cover me
There's been a lot of mention lately in the blogosphere about the importance and purpose of book covers. Busy as I am, I haven't read nearly all of it, but in my (increasingly) spare time, I have managed to read up on Justine's extreme disappointment and rightful objections about the whitewashing of her new book Liar (with additional comment from Chasing Ray and Boing Boing); as well as John Picacio's open letter to Adam Roberts regarding the professional artists on this year's Hugo ballot; as well as John Coulthart's link to a Flickrset of classic sf covers; as well as kynn's roundup of the recent Realms/EllisonFail kerfuffle; as well as the very perceptive marrael's posts about sexism in fantasy art, fantasy book covers, and the differences in cover art between the US and UK covers of Victor Pelevin's novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf.
I'm lucky to live in a country that imports titles from both the US and UK, and typically allows me the choice of picking between them. Borders, being a US company, mostly stocks from the US, but there are some UK versions that occasionally sneak in. Kinokuniya, being a Japanese company, has no such allegiances, and freely stocks both, shelving them right next to each other (although they lean a bit more toward UK publishers). And if I want to support my local independents, I can call up BooksActually for fiction or Polymath & Crust for nonfiction and they can usually get the edition that I want. And I have to say, for the majority of the time, I go for the edition published in the United Kingdom. I don't know if my aesthetic has just shifted that way after a lifetime of US cover design and artwork, but I frequently find that UK covers just grab my attention and hold them. This is of course a sweeping statement, and it doesn't always apply.
Just take the following example, the US and UK covers for Junot Díaz's NBCC Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:
I picked up the US Riverhead hardcover with the lefthand cover in a tiny Borders shop in the Minneapolis airport on the way to my parents' in South Carolina for Christmas in 2007. I'd heard the beginnings of buzz about this book, and I figured (rightly) that it would be cheaper for me to buy the book in the US and bring it back to Singapore rather than waiting for it to be sold there. I wasn't crazy about the cover and the bloody olde timey silhouette with the bird wing sticking out of the head, but it was the only edition available. I loved the book and later nominated it (along with many other people) for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
But were I picking up the book today, I'd be far more drawn to the UK paperback cover art at right from Faber & Faber. Not only does it have an actual person on the cover (which, as has been proclaimed recently, sells more copies than abstract or representational covers), but it shows a Hispanic boy sitting at a table strewn with comics and toys, in a setting and in clothing resonant with the 1970s, chocolate smeared on his face (but still eating), and wearing the mask of The Flash cocked askew on his head. This cover so much more represents who Oscar is in the book: a Dominican comic book nerd who loves to eat. There's a lot to Oscar other than this, but as a one-shot of his character, I love it, and it features a Hispanic kid on the cover.
I don't know how many copies Faber has sold of this edition (this was the re-issue they did after Díaz won the Pulitzer), but I'd be curious to see how it compares to the blander text-heavy edition that they first released.
I'm lucky to live in a country that imports titles from both the US and UK, and typically allows me the choice of picking between them. Borders, being a US company, mostly stocks from the US, but there are some UK versions that occasionally sneak in. Kinokuniya, being a Japanese company, has no such allegiances, and freely stocks both, shelving them right next to each other (although they lean a bit more toward UK publishers). And if I want to support my local independents, I can call up BooksActually for fiction or Polymath & Crust for nonfiction and they can usually get the edition that I want. And I have to say, for the majority of the time, I go for the edition published in the United Kingdom. I don't know if my aesthetic has just shifted that way after a lifetime of US cover design and artwork, but I frequently find that UK covers just grab my attention and hold them. This is of course a sweeping statement, and it doesn't always apply.
Just take the following example, the US and UK covers for Junot Díaz's NBCC Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:
I picked up the US Riverhead hardcover with the lefthand cover in a tiny Borders shop in the Minneapolis airport on the way to my parents' in South Carolina for Christmas in 2007. I'd heard the beginnings of buzz about this book, and I figured (rightly) that it would be cheaper for me to buy the book in the US and bring it back to Singapore rather than waiting for it to be sold there. I wasn't crazy about the cover and the bloody olde timey silhouette with the bird wing sticking out of the head, but it was the only edition available. I loved the book and later nominated it (along with many other people) for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
But were I picking up the book today, I'd be far more drawn to the UK paperback cover art at right from Faber & Faber. Not only does it have an actual person on the cover (which, as has been proclaimed recently, sells more copies than abstract or representational covers), but it shows a Hispanic boy sitting at a table strewn with comics and toys, in a setting and in clothing resonant with the 1970s, chocolate smeared on his face (but still eating), and wearing the mask of The Flash cocked askew on his head. This cover so much more represents who Oscar is in the book: a Dominican comic book nerd who loves to eat. There's a lot to Oscar other than this, but as a one-shot of his character, I love it, and it features a Hispanic kid on the cover.
I don't know how many copies Faber has sold of this edition (this was the re-issue they did after Díaz won the Pulitzer), but I'd be curious to see how it compares to the blander text-heavy edition that they first released.
