Thursday, October 26, 2006

Penguin Porn

Many thanks to the unnamed employees of Penguin Canada who allowed me to walk out of their party with Phil Baines’s Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935–2005 under my arm.

It is easy to go all fetishistic over covers from Penguin’s classic years, but looking through the book, I’m still baffled as to why more North American publishers and book designers do not follow the clarity-plus-cleverness standard set by some of Penguin’s more famous designs and series. Non-fiction fares a little better, but with literary fiction, there still seems to be a default setting called “averted gaze in sepia.”

1 comment:

Slant said...

oh i KNOW. i borrowed a copy from a friend and took it home to look at in bed. the same way i used to take kirk cameron: dream guy out of my school library and read it under the covers when i was 10.

    A very subtle and funny writer - one I've become obsessed with over the past year - in a decidedly Muriel Spark mood. Imagine The Pr...