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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Cover art I am addicted to the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child (I have read practically all of them). On Child’s website is a nifty collection of the cover art for his novels, taken from all around the world. Cover art is a much under-rated aspect of design, in my opinion.
A few weeks ago, I got my hands on an old Ian Fleming hardback – You Only Live Twice. It is a US first edition that I bought for £25, which I reckon is a serious result. It was printed in the early 60s, and its cover is deceptively simple. (Here is a collection of all the hardback covers of that novel.) The first edition Bond novels that were released first in the UK often go for a bloody fortune. The first edition of Casino Royale will cost tens of thousands. The cover art on those novels is great.
And SF cover art is often excellent. Here are some ones I like on this link.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Absolutely. Cover art (esp SF) is one the reasons ebooks will be slow to catch on.
Not for me John – ‘don’t judge the book’ and all that:-)
The Dust Jackets of the James Bond first editions are indeed works of art. Done by a guy called Richard Chopping I believe. Interestingly, when the Bond novel series was revived by John Gardner in the early 80’s the same guy did the dust covers on the first editions. The books might have degenerated into absolute garbage but the covers were as beautiful as ever.
In the 50s and 60’s, several UK publishers of both hardcovers and paperbacks maintained what amounted to a stable of cover art illustrators. With very few exceptions, these folks toiled in lonely anonymity, but produced a stream of high-quality cover art the like of which we may not see again.
Like the Muscle Shoals Swampers or the rythym section at Hitsville USA, these folks provided a top-quality accompaniment to the featured work. For books that stayed in print for extended periods, there are actually delightful trains of cover art for the various editions, almost-all of uniformly-high illustrative quality.
Then they went all psychodelic and impressionist on us or, worse yet, they started using photographs (bah!).
The series of Bond covers in the link show something of what I mean. I collect the works of another popular British writer of that period, and the quality and quantity of the cover art – especially for the paperbacks – adds a significant extra dimension to the pleasure of collecting.
llater,
llamas
I owe a debt to Chris Foss (along with a number of other artists) for getting me into science fiction in the first place. As an 11 year-old I remember being captivated by the paperbacks in the book section of W.H. Smiths, adorned as they were with huge, fantastically detailed weather beaten spacecraft, exotic alien landscapes or clunky menacing robots. Very rarely did these illustrations have anything to do with the story (especially if the novel was one of Isaac Asimov’s) but they did an excellent job of reeling me into the genre.
But under the dust jackets lurk the books’ real covers, which are never seen. I have always suspected that designing those covers is the least satisfying job in Christendom.
Has Jack Reacher changed his underpants once since the start of the series?
The original covers for the US editions of Phil K Dicks novels were pretty funky
http://www.biocrawler.com/w/images/9/9e/A-Scanner-Darkly.png
Incidentally by the same guy who painted the cover for Love’s Forever Changes album
I usually begin the night here: http://www.philipkdick.com/covers/palmer2.jpg
After a few drinks, however, I inevitably end up here:
http://www.goodgirlart.com/images2/farm.jpg
Books. Is there anything they can’t do?
I love the Lee Child books, but the fact that he is British is irritatingly evident. Americans don’t call small towns “villages” or “hamlets.” We DO NOT put a washing machine or dryer in the kitchen any more than we would put a refrigerator in the laundry room. We do not say “pocketbook”– we say purse or bag.
The best book covers in recent years are the P.G. Wodehouse series released by Overlook Press. Simple, colorful, genius!
(Link)
Try this instead:
(Link)
Most of what I know about British culture I owe to P.G. Wodehouse! (And Samizdata, of course.)