The Zing Factor in Book Cover Designs

Here comes the last post on the ‘Book Cover’ series for the A2Z challenge. So instead of just another book cover, here comes the post exploring some of my favourite book covers. The little zing on the book cover captures the reader's excitement and lures them to the cash counter. They say not to judge …

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce: Book Cover Designs

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ by James Joyce is a Classic published in 1916. After reading ‘Dubliners’ by James Joyce, I was keen on reading his next book and to include his greatest creation, ‘Ulysses’ on my TBR. However, I found ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ before …

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather by Gao Xinjiang | Book Cover Designs

I discovered Gao Xinjiang’s writing last year with ‘Soul Mountain’ while doing the A2Z challenge. Gao Xinjiang won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 2000. Choosing an exile from China in 1987, he settled in Paris and completed ‘Soul Mountain’. ‘Soul Mountain’ is a book that draws from the author’s biographical account of …

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: Book Cover Designs

‘The White Tiger’ was one random pick. Obviously, the ‘Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008’ worked its charm though I had no clue about its author, Aravind Adiga. The cover also threw some doubts; it felt more like holding a graphic novel than a collection from the serious Booker Prize awarded types. The White …

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: Book Cover Designs

‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown is a special book for me. The book was published in 2003 and immediately had trekked the globe to become the bestseller. Everyone around me was either reading the book or had already read this book. I joined the bandwagon; borrowed the book from a friend and was …

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri | Book Cover Designs

Jhumpa Lahiri's third book 'Unaccustomed Earth' was published in 2008. I remember when ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ had come out in the year 1999, the name Jhumpa Lahiri created a huge buzz in literary circles. Jhumpa Lahiri further cemented the place for her with ‘Namesake’ in 2003. When her third book came after 5 years, there …

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh: Book Cover Designs

"It is here, there is a point at which the braid comes undone, when Lord Shiva's matted hair is washed apart into vast, knotted tangle. Once past this point, the river throws off its bindings and separates into hundreds, maybe thousands of tangled strands." In ‘The Hungry Tide’, Amitav Ghosh takes you to one of …

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: Book Cover Designs

“I remember, in no particular order: a shiny inner wrist;steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;…gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house;a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing …

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse: Book Cover Designs

I am a late entrant to Wodehouse’s world of ‘Wooster and Jeeves’. And, I must say I missed out on this marvelous setting of romantic comedy. ‘Right Ho, Jeeves’ is the second full-length novel after ‘Thank You, Jeeves’ with the hilarious duo of ‘Bertie Wooster and Jeeves’ that was published in 1934. 'The Plot' before …

(Q) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: Book Cover Designs

Let’s get on a literary trip to Spain, 400-years-back in history. In your head, aren’t the knights a commonplace phenomenon of the past, lives choking with adventures of treasure hunts, fighting the battle, freeing the slaves and killing the monsters? No, this isn’t ‘The Odyssey’ era; human lives were perhaps as mundane as it is …

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman: Book Cover Designs

Frankly, I had no clue on Stephen Kelman until I searched on the internet half-way through his debut book – Pigeon English. When I bought ‘Pigeon English’, the cover said it is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011. But, my intrigue was purely for the title and the beautiful blue cover, with the picture …

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway: Book Cover Designs

What could be the book cover ideas for a title as direct as ‘The Old Man and The Sea’? You get the image of an ‘Old Man’ and ‘the Sea’ in the first instance. ‘The Old Man and The Sea’ is the story of an old experienced fisherman, named Santiago facing a dry spell of …

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami: Book Cover Designs

‘Norwegian Wood’ was my first foray into Murakami’s world. I was quite surprised to know that 'Norwegian Wood' was published in 1987 and I hardly knew of it for so long. I guess the fascination for an all-encompassing literature beyond the US-UK landscape is more recent. I am not a music lover, and as for …

Milkman by Anna Burns: Book Cover Designs

Milkman! First thoughts…a great feminist book. Second thoughts mostly overwhelmed by the hubbub of the Booker Prize winner in 2018. An Overview An eighteen-year-old girl, the protagonist stalked by an older man. A story set in the nineteen-seventies perhaps in Belfast, Ireland during the ‘Troubles’ (a period of ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968 …

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: Book Cover Designs

I bought ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ the year after it won the prestigious ‘Booker Prize’. At the bookshop, I was oscillating between ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ by George Saunders and ‘The Blind Assassin’ by Margaret Atwood. Well, Atwood being Atwood and Saunders being relatively unknown to me at that point…I should have technically Googled and …

Kim by Rudyard Kipling: Book Cover Designs

'Kim' is one of the most celebrated works of Rudyard Kipling. Well, perhaps next to ‘The Jungle Book’ after Disney took charge of presenting the story on celluloid. I read 'Kim' in school in its abridged form. It left me with an innate desire to go back to the affable old Buddhist monk and the …

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë | Analysing Book Cover Designs

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë needs no introduction, published in 1847 and still mesmerizing readers with its literary genius in the 21st century. In this post, let us look at some of the book covers publishers across a varied board tried to put on display. This is an attempt to understand how the covers relate …

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino: Book Cover Designs

'If on a winter’s night a traveller' by Italo Calvino is eccentric to the core. Did I go by the book cover? No, it was the word of mouth that led me to this beautiful piece of literature. An incomplete statement ‘If on a winter’s night a traveller’ makes for a rather unusual and intriguing …

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: Book Cover Designs

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood haunts you like none other in the dystopian genre. I couldn’t sleep for the nights I was cliff-hanging onto Offred’s story. I wasn’t distinctively drawn towards dystopia until, of course, Orwell’s 1984 happened to me. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ had been on my list for long and then, one day …

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: Book Cover Designs

Great Expectations is one book that binds us as one reading community. Irrespective of our native tongue, we all have our little Great Expectations-read-in-school anecdotes to share. Don’t we? I love this book to the core. And, I may not probably put up the cover of my copy of the book for it is in …