Sunday 8 June 2008

I Obviously Have Nowt Better to Do

I've just failed to start two lawnmowers and I almost electrocuted myself with a dying automatic garage door opener (thank God for safety switches), so why not blog instead?

It's another one of these posts, this time with the Australian version of Geraldine Brooks' March, and Nerys Jones' Godiva.



That they use the same cover photo is more apparent when you superimpose one on the other.



On a completely different note, here's a cover I really do like and know nothing about. It's from the NYRB Classics reissue of The Family Mashber, an incomplete Yiddish masterpiece from an author killed in Stalin's gulags. When I can get hold of a copy I want to find out what this cover image is from.



UPDATE: The excellent Sara Kramer of NYRB has explained in the comments that the Mashber cover image is by Christian Boltanski, a French photographer and installation artist. A brief biography is here, and a good starting guide to his works online is here.

6 comments:

Juliet said...

What an excellent blog! Can't remember how I landed here, but very glad I did.

JRSM said...

Well, I thank you! Anyone who lusts after Penguin pencils and green Viragos is just the sort of person we need more of, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me a little (but only a little) of the Penguin Classics cover for Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which was from a competition in the Guardian newspaper.

JRSM said...

Yes, it was by Matt Dawson, who also did a couple of other excellent Bulgakov covers, discussed here

Anonymous said...

Hi CCC, Sara again, to answer your query, the image on the cover of The Family Mashber is by the contemporary French artist Christian Boltanski. I'd thought the installation was called "Angel of Light"—but I can't seem to turn anything up by that title.

JRSM said...

Sara, thank you--that's very helpful. I'll amend the post to explain that.