May 4, 2018
THE LANGUAGE OF KINDNESS - Christie Watson
Christie Watson was a nurse for twenty years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astounding account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion...

THE LANGUAGE OF KINDNESS - Christie Watson

Christie Watson was a nurse for twenty years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astounding account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness.

We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient’s agonising heart-lung transplant, and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.

In our most extreme moments, when life is lived most intensely, Christie is with us. She is a guide, mentor and friend. And in these dark days of division and isolationism, she encourages us all to stretch out a hand.

The jacket art work Blue D.I by Wojciech Fangor from the Jankilevitsch Collection, was chosen to convey an abstract sense of radiating feeling and emotion, and even perhaps in this context, that most fundamental and essential sense: kindness.

 The Language of Kindness is published by Chatto and Windus and out now.

Apr 27, 2018

A Spy Named Orphan - Roland Phillips

There’s nothing like being handed official government documents from the National Archives to drive a cover concept. Our endpapers document the last known movements of one of Britains most well-kept secrets.

Donald Maclean, a former British Diplomat and head of the American Dept in the Foreign Office, was one of the Cambridge Five - a spy ring acting for the Soviet Union. ‘Orphan’ tells the story of his astonishing double life – from austere childhood to Cambridge Graduate to his eventual defection in 1951.

A star diplomat with a tendancy for wild binges, Maclean was the perfect spy,  leaking huge amounts of top-secret data to the Russians and heightening the tensions of the Cold war.

The front cover is from a portrait by Lettice Ramsey and Helen Muspratt who photographed many of Cambridge’s leading pre-war intellects. Thanks to Peter Lofts who now owns and runs the Ramsey and Muspratt archive.

Apr 26, 2018
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
First published in London in 1848, the impact of The Communist Manifesto has reverberated across the globe for the last 150 years. It still has brilliant insights into why capitalism is in deep...

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

First published in London in 1848, the impact of The Communist Manifesto has reverberated across the globe for the last 150 years. It still has brilliant insights into why capitalism is in deep trouble today, and offers clues on how humanity can regain control over its future.

There have been many cover designs for The Communist Manifesto since it’s original publication, and almost all have relied on the now familiar imagery and styling associated with Russian Revloutionary graphics and Soviet Communism. They clearly emphasise the Manifesto’s relevance as the basis for the ideals of 20th-Century Communism.

For this anniversary edition, which has an introduction by Yanis Varoufakis, we wanted to create a striking new cover design, whilst referencing the kind of public information graphics which would have been recognisable to Marx and Engels.

With the help of Rose Walker at the Inkspot Press, our designer created the entire front cover in traditional letterpress - producing a design which has its roots in Victorian printed notices, but with a quirky modern layout reminiscent of later Communist graphic posters.

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With so many quotable passages from The Communist Manifesto, we also designed some full page letterpress quotes to sit within the text.

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Apr 24, 2018
BALANCING ACTS - Nicholas Hytner
Nicholas Hytner became Director of the National Theatre in 2003, and spent the next 12 years reinvigorating the theatre. He changed the public’s perception of what theatre is, and introduced new talent, directing some...

BALANCING ACTS - Nicholas Hytner

Nicholas Hytner became Director of the National Theatre in 2003, and spent the next 12 years reinvigorating the theatre. He changed the public’s perception of what theatre is, and introduced new talent, directing some of the most celebrated actors of our times. Balancing Acts takes us behind the scenes during his stewardship.

The design for the cover is inspired by theatre posters, illustrated with bold abstracted glimpses of the National Theatre. It uses Helvetica, which became the ‘house typeface’ for their posters and promotional material, during Hytner’s time at the theatre.

Apr 23, 2018
ORDINARY PEOPLE - Diana Evans
Ordinary People by Diana Evans is about compromise and the unravelling of life, through the prism of black and mixed race identities. The cover interweaves patterns inspired by wax print fabrics native to West Africa...

ORDINARY PEOPLE - Diana Evans

Ordinary People by Diana Evans is about compromise and the unravelling of life, through the prism of black and mixed race identities. The cover interweaves patterns inspired by wax print fabrics native to West Africa (also known as Ankara) with maps of areas in London relevant to the story.

Apr 13, 2018

VINTAGE MINIS

The next set of 10 Vintage minis are out now.

To see the previous set click here

Apr 5, 2018

HEROES AND VILLAINS

‘Heroes and Villains’ is our brand new series of A-format books - a collection of broad and diverse writing from authors who’s words challenge the complex boundaries between right and wrong.

The actions of the heroes and villains blur the lines between good and bad, so the design works by giving a strong visual reference around the idea of duplicity with their striking black and white covers.

The books all feature strong characters and both sides of the covers show quotes from the famous (or depending on your view, infamous) characters in the books.

The 12 books in the collection are:

Dr. No, Ian Fleming
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Devil’s Star, Jo Nesbo
The Tiger in the Smoke, Margery Allingham
The Thirty Nine Steps, John Buchan
The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
Murder Has a Motive, Francis Duncan
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux

Mar 15, 2018
THE LAST SAMURAI - Helen DeWitt
Eleven-year-old Ludo is in search of a father. Raised singlehandedly by his mother Sibylla, Ludo’s been reading Greek, Arabic, Japanese and a little Hebrew since the age of four; but reading Homer in the original...

THE LAST SAMURAI - Helen DeWitt

Eleven-year-old Ludo is in search of a father. Raised singlehandedly by his mother Sibylla, Ludo’s been reading Greek, Arabic, Japanese and a little Hebrew since the age of four; but reading Homer in the original whilst riding the Circle Line on the London Underground isn’t enough to satisfy the boy’s boundless curiosity.

He’s grown up watching Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai on a hypnotising loop – his mother’s strategy to give him not one but seven male role models. And yet Ludo remains obsessed with the one thing his mother refuses to tell him: his real father’s name. Let loose on London, Ludo sets out on a secret quest to find the last samurai – the father he never knew.

Ludo highlight’s words as he learns them in the books he reads and this struck us as an interesting way of filling the cover with text whilst distinguishing the title from the author name. Finally, having Ludo on there as just a small icon emphasises the enormity of language in his life.

Mar 13, 2018

DEAD MEN’S TROUSERS – Irvine Welsh

Renton, Begbie, Sickboy and Spud are back. But which of them is wearing Dead Men’s Trousers?

Our cover is a re-enactment of Michael Wolgemut’s 1493 woodcut ‘The Dance of Death’. With added trousers.

Oue skeleton marionette was created by artist Tony Sinnett for 2011′s ‘Skagboys. He has now been revived and forced to wear tiny trousers for the benefit of this cover (the skeleton - not Tony).
Secretly, we think he enjoyed the experience. Sam Barker has the polaroids.

Dead Men’s Trousers is a weirdly moving extention of the Trainspotting story.
Be prepared to slip into a world of illegal organ donors, international DJs, tortuous art, drugs, backstabbing, crooked cops, weird sex, addictions, revenge, betrayal and Hibs winning the Scottish Cup Final. Classic Irvine.

Published this month by Jonathan Cape.

Mar 8, 2018
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY - VINTAGE FEMINIST SHORTS
Happy International Women’s Day. We have two new additions to the feminist short series of books; My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY - VINTAGE FEMINIST SHORTS

Happy International Women’s Day. We have two new additions to the feminist short series of books; My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

Mar 2, 2018
FOREVER AND A DAY - Anthony Horowitz
A spy is dead. A legend is born.
We are excited to share the cover for Anthony Horowitz’s new James Bond novel, Forever and a Day.
This is how it all began. The explosive prequel to Casino Royale.
Forever and a...

FOREVER AND A DAY - Anthony Horowitz

A spy is dead. A legend is born.

We are excited to share the cover for Anthony Horowitz’s new James Bond novel, Forever and a Day.

This is how it all began. The explosive prequel to Casino Royale.

Forever and a Day will be published by Jonathan Cape on the 31st May and you can read more about it here.

Mar 1, 2018

ADJUSTMENT DAY – Chuck Palahniuk

A mysterious blue-black book.

Ingeniously comic.

Skewer the absurdities.

Smug, geriatric politicians.

The brink of a Third World War.

Burying the elites.

The bleakest future

A Disunited States.

A separatist fantasy.

Alternative fact.

Conspiracy theory.

A Disunited States.

‘ADJUSTMENT DAY IS UPON US’


Published in July by Jonathan Cape.

Feb 28, 2018

THE LINE BECOMES A RIVER Francisco Cantú

How does a line in the sand become a barrier that people will risk everything to cross?

Francisco Cantú was a US Border Patrol agent from 2008 to 2012. He worked the desert along the Mexican border, at the remote crossroads of drug routes and smuggling corridors, tracking humans through blistering days and frigid nights across a vast terrain.

He detains the exhausted and the parched. He hauls in the dead. He tries not to think where the stories go from there.

The jacket shows a painted silhouette of a wolf that is pertinent to the text. The lettering is in the graduated colour tones typically seen in Mexican printed matter. The paper stock is a very tactile brown paper. This contrasts with the stark reality of the photograph by Anthony Suau (Gallery Stock) of the open desert border between the US and Mexico which is used for the endpapers.

The Line Becomes a River is published on 1 March by Bodley Head.

Feb 7, 2018

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden - Denis Johnson

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from prize winning author Denis Johnson. The cover for Johnson’s last book was created by intricately piecing together hundreds of pencil shavings from coloured pencils.

Published by Jonathan Cape, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is out now.

Feb 1, 2018

BRIT(ISH) - Afua Hirsch

Brit(ish) is about a search for identity. You’re British. Your parents are British. You were raised in Britain. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British.

So why do people keep asking you where you are from?

The cover features a junkshop flag.

Published today by Jonathan Cape
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