Covering up

"It's certainly true that throughout publishing history, the more highbrow or revered the book, the more abstract its cover is likely to be. You don't tend to get a picture of Jesus on an adult bible.... [Yet] as the historian Alan Powers writes in Front Cover, we need a book's physical form to convey "something more than mere 'information' "; we need it to connect "with some undefended part of the personality in order to say, 'Take me, I'm yours' ". "

Helen Brown on the modern history of book covers.

August 19, 2007 8:08 PM | Permalink

Categories:

THE REVIEWS:

Pat Barker, Frankenstein, Cass Sunstein on the internet, Samuel Johnson, Thrillers, Denis Johnson, Alan Furst, Caryl Phillips, Richard Flanagan, George Saunders, Michael Harvey, Larry McMurtry, Harry Potter and more ...

ESSAY:

Big D between the sheets -- Dallas in fiction

ESSAY:

Reviewing the state of reviewing

ESSAY:

9/11 as a novel: Why?

ESSAY:

How can critics say the things they do? And why does anyone pay attention? It's the issue of authority.

The disappearing book pages:

Papers are cutting book coverage for little reason

Thrillers and Lists:

Noir favorites, who makes the cut and why