TWO YEARS EIGHT MONTHS AND TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS - Salman Rushdie
We commissioned London based illustrator Sroop Sunar to give Salman Rushdie a bold and colourful new look. Here, she talks about working closely with us on this exciting project.
‘When I heard that I was being given the opportunity to work on book covers for such a prolific writer, I was incredibly excited. And terrified.
The task of reimagining the artwork for some of the most iconic novels of the 20th century was so daunting, so enormous. But at the same time so significant.
Much of my inspiration comes from the vibrant, visual language found on everyday packaging and labels found in India around the time of Independence. It was a time of great transition, of hybridity, of old and new ideas clashing together. Of all forgotten places, this showed most on the simplest, seemingly insignificant canvas of all - the humble matchbox and its printed label. The kaleidoscopic variety of haphazardly printed ephemera seen on matchbox labels, as well as medicine boxes, soap packs and firecrackers, all have such a recognisable and symbolic aesthetic that really captured a unique period in time.
Being able to refresh Salman Rushdie’s covers in a truly meaningful collaboration with the Vintage Design team was a great opportunity that I am very proud of. His books touch on many similar themes and places that I pull inspiration from, and I can only hope that these new covers might capture the curiosity of some of the next generation of readers just as matchboxes captured mine.’
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is published in September by Jonathan Cape with the backlist available now from Vintage
I AM RADAR - Reif Larsen
This is a kaleidoscopic, epic novel about a lovestruck radio operator who discovers a secret society…
A die cut cover through to the boards printed in black and white with a flourescent red pantone.
Out now and published by Harvill Secker
INTRODUCING THE ANCIENT GREEKS - Edith Hall
In the late 1930s Magnum photographer, Herbert List, travelled in Greece photographing antique sculptures, temples and landscapes. These beautifully composed photographs of the classical world seemed the best place to look when work was started on a jacket of Edith Hall’s book Introducing the Ancient Greeks.
More of the work of Herbert List can be seen at Magnum Photos.
Edith Hall’s book is out now from The Bodley Head
THE GAP OF TIME - Jeanette Winterson
The Hogarth Shakespeare series will launch in October 2015 with The Gap of Time – Jeanette Winterson’s reinvention of The Winter’s Tale. This major international project will see Shakespeare’s plays reimagined by some of today’s bestselling and most celebrated writers. The books will be true to the spirit of the original plays, while giving authors an exciting opportunity to do something new.
Winterson said of The Winter’s Tale: ‘All of us have talismanic texts that we have carried around and that carry us around. I have worked with The Winter’s Tale in many disguises for many years. This is a brilliant opportunity to work with it in its own right. And I love cover-versions.’
The endpapers for the series were beautifully illustrated by Clare Curtis.
For more information about the series visit http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/hogarthshakespeare/
BLOOD ON SNOW - Jo Nesbo
From the bestselling author of the Harry Hole series, comes Blood on Snow: Drugs. Death. Murder. Revenge - and a hitman with two big problems.
Designed in house, this Waterstones special edition hardback features a minimalist case complemented by red sprayed edges allowing the blood to seep through on to the page.
It’s All in Your Head - Suzanne Sullivan
Whilst struggling to find a worthwhile metaphor for a book about psychosomatic illness, it occurred that the chicken and egg scenario could help allude to an eternal problem. What came first – the symptom or the illness?
Up to a third of people who go to see their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained; in the vast majority of these cases an emotional cause is suspected. And yet, when it comes to a diagnosis, ‘it’s all in your head’ is the very last thing we want to hear, and the last thing doctors want to say.
In ‘It’s All in Your Head’, neurologist Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan takes us on a journey through the world of psychosomatic illness and encourages us to question our age-old failure to credit the intimate and extraordinary connection between mind and body.
Published by Chatto & Windus in June.
Cover photograph © Graeme Montgomery / Trunk Archive | Creative Image Licensing
MY LIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC - Jon Hotten
Los Angeles, 1988. On Sunset Strip, undiscovered bands dream of emulating their heroes: Motley Crüe, Van Halen, Poison and all the other chancers who got lucky…
Set in the glory days when the music business was a vast and amoral empire where stardom seemed arbitrary and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll
were the lifestyle of choice. Designed in house, My Life and the Beautiful Music blurs memoir, myth and reality to recreate the last, lost era of a now-vanished world.
Jon Hotten was a contributor to Kerrang! magazine from 1987-92 - check out his soundtrack to the book at http://mylifeandthebeautifulmusic.tumblr.com/
THE STORY OF ALICE - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
‘Who in the world am I?’
Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
The original Tenniel drawings seemed the ideal basis for the cover design as they are so iconic, witty and characterful and have never been bettered. We can
recognise at once, Alice holding the pig, even in silhouette. The inky blue silhouette of Alice allows us to project onto her who we want her to be. The deep blue ink hints at something darker going on, which of course much of the book is preoccupied with.
RED, BLUE, WHITE DOTS
On a recent visit to Amsterdam, two members of the design department went to the Stedelijk Museum to see an exhibition about the museum during the Second World War. The story of how the collection and many other works of art that were entrusted to the museum as artists and art collectors fled the Nazi regime, and were kept safe in a bunker in the dunes, was grippingly told. A selection of the works that had once been hidden was displayed along with archival material. We were particularly struck with the system of coloured dots deployed on the backs of paintings to mark their importance: red for irreplaceable works to be evacuated first; white for important but not always irreplaceable, and blue for objects that in theory were replaceable.
In some cases the rightful ownership of a painting is still being investigated by the museum and is yet to be ruled on by the restitution committee.
VINTAGE FEMINISM
This month Vintage will be publishing new editons of Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’, Naomi Wolf’s 'The Beauty Myth’ and Mary Wollstonecroft’s 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’.
The main editions were designed in house and feature beautiful photography by Anton Stankowski (The Beauty Myth/A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and Joy Gregory (The Second Sex).
The short editions come in a slightly smaller format and feature key extracts from the main editions. They are designed by Jon Gray.
GIFT FROM THE SEA - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
‘Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.’
First published in 1955, Gift from the Sea is a classic, wise book for women about how to balance life, work, motherhood; about finding space to think and breathe. Taking inspiration from the shells she finds on the seashore, Anne Morrow Lindbergh meditates on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude and contentment.
We commissioned Millie Marotta to illustrate the jacket and endpapers of this anniversary edition, as well as beautiful shells to accompany each chapter.
BIRTH OF A THEOREM – Cédric Villani
What goes on inside the mind of a rock-star mathematician? Where does inspiration come from?
In Cédric Villani’s Birth of A Theorem we discover how it feels to be obsessed by a theorem throughout your dreams, why appreciating maths is a bit like watching an episode of Columbo, and how sometimes inspiration only comes from locking yourself away in a dark room to think.
Villani takes us on a mesmerising journey as he wrestles with a new theorem that will win him the most coveted prize in mathematics, along the way conjuring up an inimitable cast of characters including the omnipresent Einstein, mad genius Kurt Godel, and Villani’s personal hero, John Nash.
Maths has never seemed so magical or so exciting.
Birth of a Theorem is published by The Bodley Head in March 2015.
HOW MUSIC GOT FREE - Stephen Witt
A blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries, criminals and moguls. How Music Got Free is about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, and an illegal website six times the size of iTunes.
Our cover ‘displays’ one of the main protagonists, and hints at how one man’s crime snowballs into an explosive moment in history.
Published by The Bodley Head in June 2015.
ATMOSPHERE - Turner Contemporary
This Autumn, Chatto & Windus will publish THE WHITE ROAD by Edmund de Waal, which tells the dramatic story of porcelain throughout history. To inspire the design process for the book jacket, we visited Turner Contemporary in Margate, where Edmund’s thought-provoking and immersive new work graces the gallery.
THE PAST - Tessa Hadley
In her new novel, The Past, three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents’ old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past - their mother took them there when she left their father - but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions.
The jacket for this enthralling story of family tensions reproduces two photographs from the series Interior by the Danish photography-based visual artist, Trine Søndergaard. Her work is striking in its precision and imbued with intense emotion which we believe complements the timbre of Tessa Hadley’s nuanced and beautifully-crafted writing.
More of Trine Søndergaard’s work can be seen at trinesondergaard.com, and in her book Stasis published by Hatje Cantz.
The Past will be published by Jonathan Cape in September this year.
