What if it were 'Mr. Dalloway'? Book covers revisited

 

Imagine if Graham Greene's classic had been titled "Our Woman in Havana." How would the story of spies and intrigue have changed? Would readers expect dancing and romance rather than British agent trickery?

German artist Daniela Comani doesn't dig into these questions, but she raises them in her New Publications series, on exhibit now in L.A.'s Charlie James Gallery, her first solo show in the U.S. Much of Comani's art investigates the boundaries of gender; in the New Publications series, she brings her sensibility to literature.

In the series, Comani retitles books by inverting gender-focused words in the titles: "La Petite Princesss" for "The Little Prince," "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman" in place of James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." She uses images of vintage book covers and very closely recreates them.

After the jump, see some snapshots of her work taken during a visit to the exhibition, which closes June 4.

A box of Penguins

Penguin Books, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, has released a box set of 100 postcards of its book covers. Penguin founder Allen Lane was inspired to start the publishing company when, standing on a train platform, he was unable to find any quality paperbacks. The now-iconic Penguin cover design featured a double band of orange with the book's title and author in the center; later designs stretched in sometimes trippy directions.

As the growing popularity of e-books casts a shadow over paperbacks' future, a hard-copy postcard seems an appropriate snail-mail tribute. See a gallery of 16 favorites of the Postcards from the Penguin set.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Images: Penguin Books

A Swiftian proposal for publishers and more book news

Are some publishers nearing the end of their life cycles? Will the print-electronic revolution spell death for some? Instead of dragging their businesses slowly to the graveyard, should those facing certain doom meet their ends with dignity? At the Institute for the Future of the Book, Bob Stein makes a Swiftian suggestion: hospice for publishers.

"It would be a matter of selling the assets that can be sold, providing staff with generous severance and really helping them to find new jobs, and then at the very end giving some wonderful parties, celebrating the end of an era."

He's kidding, at least a little, right?

As we move into a future where e-books and e-readers compete side-by-side with old-style paper books, one question to ask is which is better for the environment? The Washington Post says the e-book is the green book.

"As long as you consume a healthy number of titles, you read at a normal pace and you don't trade in your gadget every year, perusing electronically will lighten your environmental impact." Which is hard to reconcile with Pieter Hugo's stunning photos of a graveyard for computers in Ghana; paper pulp facilities aren't quite so grim.

Seattle's public libraries will close for a week, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 6 because of the city's $67-million budget shortfall. Decision makers selected a week of low usage, when students would not yet be in school, and will save around $650,000. Surprisingly, there's a piece of good news in this story: borrowers will be able to download e-books from the library's website during the closure (via Booksquare).

For all its popularity, the Kindle e-reader still is a little lacking in the book jacket department -- while it can render images, it's not yet in color. The annual Orbit Books survey of the art of fantasy book covers is a reminder why covers are fun. Their overview of cover trends includes unicorns (appropriately rare), dragons, "glowy magic," swords (trending down), and damsels, who in 2008 were in distress and, in 2009, entered the survey with no distress at all. Other chart-style analyses include The Changing Face of Urban Fantasy Heroines, Title Trends and Fonts and Color Trends in the North American Dragon.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Image: Reading on Malibu beach. Credit: usestangerines via Flickr

---

Clicking on Green Links will take you to a third-party e-commerce site. These sites are not operated by the Los Angeles Times. The Times Editorial staff is not involved in any way with Green Links or with these third-party sites.

---

Black and white and read all over

Occasionally we spot a book jacket meme, a bunch of covers that all seem to have something in common. Take these new books: Kitty Kelley's "Oprah" biography and Chuck Palahniuk's "Tell-All" both have bright bold letters on a stark white background. Palahniuk's new novel plays with boldfaced names and classic, scandalous Hollywood; Kelley's unauthorized biography does its best to dig up some Oprah dirt. Both white covers seem to be inverting the idea that white is equivalent to good. Not so for the so-ice-blue-it's-almost-white cover of Molly Ringwald's "Getting the Pretty Back," which uses its pale tones to highlight the sweetness of the actress's tale of "friendships, family and finding the perfect lipstick."

If white covers evoke lightness (even ironic lightness), a black cover sends a message of seriousness. Scott Turow's new novel "Innocent" and "The Imperfectionists," the debut novel from Tom Rachman, share an imposing, manly black-and-brown palette.

But it was these two black covers that really go together. "The Book of Awesome" by Neil Pasricha, from the blog 1,000 Awesome Things, and Robin Black's debut collection of stories "If I Loved You I Would Tell You This" seem to have been designed with the almost exactly the same paint set. White text, accents if orange and yellow and turquoise and pink or purple, all on a black background. And this for an author's whose last name is "black." Coincidence? You decide.

What seemed at first like two opposing trends actually, when it came right down to it, seemed to fit together after all. Somebody lent the black-cover paint set to the designer working on "Tell-All" -- the brights are quite the same, popping out from the very different white background. Palahniuk's book is the missing link.

 

If you go to a bookstore, you'll see plenty of other colors too. But these black and white covers are bound to be (and yes, I'm going to say it) read all over.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Whoops, they did it again: Bloomsbury whitewashes and withdraws [Updated]

For the second time in less than a year, Bloomsbury USA has put a white girl on the cover of a book that's about a girl of color. This time, the book is "Magic Under Glass" by Jaclyn Dolamore. The romantic fantasy features Nimira, a brown-skinned protagonist -- but the cover, at right, is what was shipped to stores. It's now being withdrawn, the publisher's website says, because:

The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly.

After the hullabaloo stirred up by Justine Larbalestier's "Liar" -- which featured a white girl on the cover, while the book has an African American protagonist -- the publisher seemed to have heard readers' complaints. "Liar" was redesigned with an African American model on the cover, in a similar pose as the original.

But the greater message seems to have been lost. That message, But the Larbalestier writes on her blog, "is not about the accuracy of covers on books."

It’s not about blonde when the character is brunette, it’s not about the wrong length hair, or the wrong colour dress, it’s not even about thin for fat.

The one about race and representation.

Sticking a white girl on the cover of a book about a brown girl is not merely inaccurate, it is part of a long history of marginalisaton and misrepresentation.

On Salon, Kate Harding writes, "Putting a white person on the cover of a book about a brown-skinned character doesn't merely imply that people of color aren't worth as much to publishers; it pretty much says it outright." She also floats the possibility that Bloomsbury did pay attention to the uproar over Larbalestier's book -- and hoped to foment similar attention for a debut author.

Which would be a shame. "I do truly understand why some people are upset by my cover," Dolamore blogged Wednesday. "But a writer is the only thing I've wanted to be all my life, it's an outlet for a girl who is often timid to express her soul. If you want to know how I feel about acceptance, love, and diversity, it is in my books.... I do hope that you'll give Nimira and her story a chance, and that you'll love her as much as I do."

-- Carolyn Kellogg

[Updated 7:31 a.m., Jan. 22: This post incorrectly said "Magic Under Glass" was published by Bloomsbury's Walker Kids imprint. It was published by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books.]