Despite being an avid – s0me may say obsessive – reader, I don’t post nearly enough about books. And for someone who, as my wee sis says, may well end up one of those people who is found a week after being reported missing pinned under an enormous mound of books that has finally toppled on her in some bizarre collective book suicide, that isn’t good enough.

So I’ll rectify it with a quick post on a fabulous book-related blog that Bookslut pointed me towards, by Henry Sene Yee called, er, … by Henry Sene Yee Design.

Yee, as it says on the tin, is a book cover designer. Yee put together the cover for journalist Dave Cullen’s book about the Columbine shootings, and it’s a fascinating meditation on tone versus art versus sensitivities.

I think what he came up is perfect:

It subtle, poignant, and non-exploitative. Yee talks of how he tried, as part of the creative process, using the terrible shots taken on CCTV that day of the child gunmen, but in the end he felt this simple, stark image of the school,  and the sky, said more about the place, and the tragedy, then the blindingly, more terribly obvious could.

As a reader, I can’t tell you how much it irritates me when a great book is ruined by a terrible cover, or how certain book covers must be stereotyped by their content -  every single chick lit book ever must be pink for example.

One of the many reasons I love Penguin classics so much is their beautiful covers. And as for movie/TV tie ins? They should all be burnt.

What are your favourites? And have you ever bought a book based on a good cover?

A obra de arte na era de sua reprodutibilidade técnica. Designer: David Pearson

Milk. Designer: Barbara de Wilde

Against happiness. Designer: Jennifer Carrow

O meio é a mensagem. Design: YES

Things I’ve learned from women who’ve dumped me. Designer: Paul Sahre

Bright shiny morning. Design: Gray 318

Why you should read Kafka before you waste your life. Designer: Steve Snider

Lopsided. How breast cancer can be really distracting. Designer: Carin Goldberg

Violence. Designer: Henry Sene Yee

The mayor’s tongue. Design: Gray 318

Soon I will be invincible. Designer: desconhecido

The age of entanglement. Designer: Jason Booher

Abraham Lincoln: great american historians on our sixteenth president. Designer: Pete Garceau

[Fonte: The New York Times]