Charles Burns Continued!

Following on from my first Charles Burns post, I coincidentally received and read my copy of Chip Kidd's new novel, The Learners, yesterday. Kidd is the most famous book designer currently working, and certainly one of the most respected. He is also a very good novelist. This sequel to the moving and funny The Cheese Monkeys is a worthy follow-up. It also features a cover by Charles Burns.

At left you can see the front cover with its diagonally cut red half-jacket: the illustration itself is printed onto the cover boards. It's a characteristically alarming Burns image, and one very appropriate to a novel about a man whose life and ideas about himself are pretty much ruined by participating in Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment in 1961.

Here is the full cover (front and back), both with and without the jacket, so you can see Burns' artwork in full.