Thursday 11 February 2010

A Book That Looks Like a Device Trying to be a Book

I like the circularity of this design: it's a book that looks like a device that's trying to be a book.

 

(Spotted in this photo of The Bookseller Crow's window display, and it fooled me at first (surely they're not selling Kindles, I thought to myself.). You can also buy it as a ebook, so you can read a fake of a real book on your fake imitator of real books.)

UPDATE: The ever-wise Alan Trotter informs me that the designer is Olly Moss.

9 comments:

Cara Sheppard said...

Ha! Fantastic!

veritas said...

my LORD. the cover is actually, heaven forbid, BETTER designed than the American one. that is rare...

what an amazing cover.

Alan said...

It's cool, isn't it? The designer's Olly Moss, who did those excellent video games as book covers based on Romek Marber's Penguin grid.

Anonymous said...

It LOOKS like tasty reading indeed. Is it? Such a clever cover is a hard match for any text that follows it.

JRSM said...

I have to admit I haven't read it--or even seen it in a shop yet. But I am intrigued. And Alan, thank you for the link--I'll add the info to the post. And it is much better than the US cover, isn't it?

gen_a said...

veritas speaks the truth (strange that!). I got a copy of the US version and it's ugly as hell.

The book itself definitely lives up to the hype surrounding it. Very timely stuff. A humanist call to arms.

StuckInABook said...

I love this idea!

Levi Stahl said...

This is a book that has been saved for me by the reviews: enough interesting, thoughtful people have described it well that I will probably read it--and it's a book I would never have touched had I based my decision solely on the title and subject; I would have assumed it was another fogeyish rant about how technology sucks. I mean, I'm not much of a tech guy despite the blogging, but I also don't need people telling me again and again that the telephone/radio/movies/tv/the Internet are going to ruin everything--but this book seems to be much smarter than that. In other words, good job, review community!

And, yes, that cover is awesome.

JRSM said...

I know what you mean--I too assumed it was a on-enote rant, but it seems to be a lot more thoughtful and nuanced.