I've raved here before about Coralie Bickford-Smith's beautiful covers: especially on the classic thriller and classic adventure covers she did for Penguin.
Well, she's done another set of gorgeous books: unfortunately, they're part of a deal between Penguin and a certain big UK bookselling chain, so aren't available in good bookshops. But we can at least look at them and their beautifully patterned cloth bindings online. And they have ribbon bookmarks. (Click for bigger versions.)
This must be Penguin's 3,884,967th edition of Pride and Prejudice. Of course, only 178 of those are currently in print.
I saw these in the bookshop and thought them quite nice, but (a) the paper is very thick so each title is far fatter than it should be (think Everyman's Classics for hardbacks with good quality but thin paper), and (b) what an uninspired selection! I suppose, though, they need to select much-loved titles so they'll sell.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally have you seen the Bill Amberg leather-bound Penguin Classics? I got a PR email about them but it's difficult to see the design clearly.
Aren't they pretty! and the upside of the Certain Big Chain special editions is that eventually we (the independents) get them anyway as the Certain Big chain always orders more than they need and then returns them - which is why most publishers hate them...! So expect them in an independent bookshop near you sometime after Christmas.. The Bill Ambergs are gorgeous (and smell really nice, something you can't often say about a book without sounding slightly obsessive)but they're HUGELY expensive for what they are.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I've just discovered you can see them in more detail here.
ReplyDeleteLucy: That I didn't know--a shame the independents have to wait for Certain Big Chain's leavings though. I recently went into the Borders in Adelaide (don't worry, I didn't buy anything), and saw that they'd just jacked up the price of EVERY book by 10%. The reason, according to someone who works there, is that, "We're the only bookshop in Adelaide that allows extended browsing, so the cost of that needs to be included in the price of the books." As an explanation, this is a priceless combination of bullshit-lies and sheer nonsense.
ReplyDeleteJohn: Thanks for that link--I'd seen them in the Penguin catalogue, but the pictures there made them indistinguishable from upmarket Bibles.
These are pretty, but I have to say I'm a paperback girl. Hardcovers just don't feel as nice in your hands :)
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