Fake Covers for Fake Books by a Fake Writer. Yes!
by Tom Nissley
Omnivoracious.com
(A blog run by the books editors at Amazon.com)
April 20, 2008
Somebody knows exactly where my buttons are, and is pushing them. As much as I love Paris Review interviews and fake writers, I may have an even softer spot for fake writers, their fake books, and their fake book covers, and Nathaniel Rich’s promotional site for his new novel, The Mayor’s Tongue, having indulged the first, has now granted me the latter, with a full (and growing) gallery of covers of the various fictitious editions of the fictious writer Constance Eakins’s fictitous books, contributed by some sharp designers and illustrators. And it’s not just the idea of it, but the covers themselves, often period pieces that are not only spot-on but gorgeous in their own right. I love, for instance, Zach Dodson’s vintage Penguin pb of Humboldt in the Amazon. But I really adore Joanna Neborsky’s often Brit-feeling covers, of which it was hard to choose just two lovelies to feature above. I think Flowers, Flowers, Eat All the Flowers is my favorite, but I had to include Songs for Agata too because I am certain I bought a copy of that one for $5 in Philadelphia in 1988. It must be on my shelves somewhere…
But my real favorite is Ben Gibson’s full-jacket treatment of The Uncles Ten (below), which I must confess I am fairly desperate to read (I imagine it in the Flann O’Brien vein…).
Want to show off your Photoshop chops and contribute your own? Drop it in the Eakins Covers Group Pool on Flickr, which has grown already since I first saw the page. And speaking of cover design, check out the Book Design Review’s recent rave for the non-fictitious cover of the non-fictitious novel at the center of all this.
And now at some point I should actually get on to actually reading The Mayor’s Tongue instead of hanging out the website all evening… –Tom