Venebles did a similar thing for the cover of The Water Clock, a crime novel. As he says, the "random almost pre-historic appearance" of the distortion from the ice is very pleasing to the eye.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Vonnegut Addendum
I should have posted this with the other Cat's Cradle covers in the last post: it's certainly my favourite take on Vonnegut's best apocalyptic novel. Done for the Essential Penguin line in 1999, it was photographed by Mike Venebles. He froze the cover text, and then took the shots through the ice.
That's the one I've got. It is a nice cover, although the new Penguin Modern Classic looks very smart too.
ReplyDeleteSide note: if I ever wanted to re-organise my books in a particularly eccentric way, I think I could fill entire bookcase with those that feature a JG Ballard quote somewhere on/in the book. And he's rarely led me astray.
I don't know what publishers are going to do without him.
He knew his stuff, didn't he? One of the books I most unexpectedly enjoyed, Helmut Newton's autobiography, was something I picked up on Ballard's recommendation. I've never been a big fan of Newton's photos, but his life story, including his time as a gigolo in Shanghai and an Italian POW in Australia during WW2 (even though he was a Jewish exile), was fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThe other author who's on every second blurb is Fay Weldon, a much less reliable guide.
I wish I'd had access to one of these decent looking editions of "Cat's Cradle" when I was growing up...
ReplyDeleteMy copy had a cover featuring some torn-shirted people looking at a big mushroom cloud/tornado thing, and purported to be "a chilling novel of global destruction" or somesuch.
Oh, the fun I had as an awkward teenager, presenting that to people as "my favourite book" and trying to convince them it was worth reading.