judging books by their covers

Book designer/novelist Chip Kidd offered up his favorite book covers in Newsweek which got me thinking about mine.
I have to say, I wouldn’t have made the same selections he did, although when I read his reasons for choosing each, I was swayed. Mostly.

Some I like:
David Sedaris – Holidays on Ice – The cover’s got some [...]

How an essay comes to be.

A pigeon falls on your windshield. Or a similarly odd, potentially transformative event happens to you. Despite the fact that you’ve been remiss in your commitment to write regularly, you feel that familiar tug… you want to describe the incident of the bird falling on your car (or whatever. insert your event here). When you [...]

Don’t let the math scare you.

The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa
A beautifully written book. It’s quiet, subtle and possesses a certain wistfulness that is common to a lot of modern Japanese lit. Also common to a lot of Japanese lit: a bittersweet element relating to a relationship that goes unfulfilled in some way. In this case, doubly unfulfilled: [...]