Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Folios to Come

Coming up is an interview with Jonathan Burton, who has beautifully illustrated the new Folio Society edition of P. D. James' Cover Her Face. To get you in the mood, here are some other upcoming Folio highlights.

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, cover and illustrations by Matthew Woodson:

 
  
 


William Golding's Lord of the Flies, cover and illustrations by Sam Weber (last seen in this post):

 
  
 


John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, cover and illustrations by  Tim Laing:

 
  
  
And here's George Psychoundakis's The Cretan Runner, last seen here, cover by Neil Gower:

 
See? These are all good covers! This blog hasn't degenerated into a freakshow of horrors!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, you're back to those beautiful covers again. So nice to have you back, although I do appreciate the comic relief every once in a while.

The cover of "lord of the flies" is very "Sin City" looking to me. It also reminds me of Dr. Beaker in Frank Miller's original Electra: Assassin series from 1987.

The picture of the child with his fingers up to his mouth actually gave me a chill down my spine.

JRSM said...

Dr Beaker! Thank you--I've been trying to work out what it reminded me of!

It's a very effective painting--his website's full of other good/alarming things.

Bob Fingerman said...

Oh, thank Jeebus! Elegance again.

Anonymous said...

Most of the time I would rather they left the books without illustrations. It can really ruin them for me.

Annabel Gaskell said...

Every year I succumb to the Folio soc, but wait until their half-price offer! This year I got Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy which I recently re-read - the illustrations were wonderfully modern and evocative of NYC and did enhance my reading hugely.

Of this year's new batch, the Le Carre looks fab.

Óscar Palmer said...

Love that Cretan Runner spread. The Lord of the Flies cover reminds me not only of Miller but also of Straw Dogs (the Dustin Hoffman with broken glasses poster); doesn't make it any less effective anyway.

Tulkinghorn said...

You could probably do an entire piece on blank white eyeglasses.

Check out the old independent comic Mr. X by Dean Motter, the Hernandez Bros and others:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17395

Rob said...

Those Le Carré illustrations are very nice.

JRSM said...

Thanks for the Motter link--I did do a piece on covers using smashed spectacles: http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2008/11/smashing-specs.html

Ricky Lee Grove said...

Dyno-mite! These covers are superb. The Dr. Beaker reference was a slap on the forehead. Thank you, Christy. And, you know, voyages into sleaze are just fine by me.