RAYMOND WILLIAMS
‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing’
Wise words for confusing times from the greatest of cultural commentators.
Williams is as relevant today as he was in the ‘60s and ‘70′s, and these masterpieces of materialist criticism have adopted a fresh typographic treatment for their release into our Vintage Classics series.
SPOILS - Brian Van Reet
She is the most dangerous thing around. The best soldiers are like her, just on the far side of childhood.
In Spoils the Iraq war is seen through the eyes of combatants from both sides, chillingly brought together by battle. Nineteen-year-old Specialist Cassandra Wigheard, on her first deployment since joining the U.S. Army two years earlier, is primed for war. For Abu al-Hool, a jihadist since the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, war is wearing thin. Two decades of fighting – and the new wave of super-radicalised fighters joining the ranks in the wake of the September 11 attacks – have left him questioning his commitment to the struggle.
This is a haunting novel of life and death. It seemed perfectly matched to the image of the burning butterfly, which is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
The burning butterfly was photographed by YBA, Mat Collishaw. Known for his provocative imagery, this photograph was part of a series that shows butterflies crushed, burned and smashed. They are seen at the moment of their deaths. The images have been enlarged into photographic prints of great smears of colour.
KUMUKANDA – Kayo Chingonyi
‘You sly devil. Lounging in a Pinter script
or pitched from a transit van’s rolled-down window;
my shadow on this unlit road, though you’ve been
smuggled from polite conversation…’ – The N Word
Poetry by Kayo Chingonyi. Underpinned by a love of music, language and literature, here is a powerful exploration of race, identity and masculinity, celebrating what it means to be British and not British, all at once.
Our cover image is A Radical Under Beechwood by British artist Lynette Yiadom Boakye - you can find more of her wonderful work here:
http://www.corvi-mora.com/gallery/Artists/lynette-yiadom-boakye/19/
Kumukanda is published by Chatto & Windus.

THE AWKWARD AGE - Francesca Segal
Jagged shapes bump together on the cover of this tale of modern family life. The tension created by the sharp pointed shapes is offset by rich warm colours and soft materials (tissue paper) and the embossed texture provides added depth. In this story two families are united in imperfect harmony. Teenagers, struggling for independence threaten their parents’ relationship. Loyalties are tested, and even grandparents and ex-partners get involved. There is a good deal of conflict, pain and awkwardness, but also humour and love.
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN - Haruki Murakami
Dreams are the kinds of things you can … borrow and lend out.
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. There are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.
I worked up a series of visuals that took as their theme the idea of isolation. I was searching for an image that responded emotionally to the idea of loneliness.
The approved cover features a moon, that appears in the stories and very neatly provides a circle within the design. Circles are a consistent feature of our Murakami covers. The background uses the work of Kate Castelli, a Boston-based artist working in printmaking and book arts. Much of her artwork uses painted or carved lines. Castelli prefers using antique book pages to print on, which she believes has a subtlety and a story that new paper lacks.
NEW BOY - Tracy Chevalier
‘She noticed him before anyone else. She was glad of that, held on to it. It made her feel special to have him to herself for a few seconds,
before the world around them skipped a beat…‘
Othello brilliantly retold as a 1970s suburban schoolyard drama. Published this week by Hogarth
THE SEVENTH FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE – Laurent Binet
Roland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with François Mitterand, a slippery politician locked in a battle for the Presidency. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident.
But what if it were an assassination?
And what exactly is the Seventh Function of Language?
Author of the multi-award-winning HHHH, Laurent Binet returns with another thrilling novel set in a world of politicians and intellectuals, where eveyone is a suspect and the idea of truth itself is at stake.
The Seventh Function of Language is published this week by Harvill Secker.
ADULTS IN THE ROOM - Yanis Varoufakis
What happens when you take on the establishment?
This blistering, personal account by world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis blows the lid on Europe’s hidden agenda and exposes what actually goes on in its corridors of power.
Adults in the Room is an urgent wake up call to renew European democracy before it is too late and is published today by The Bodley Head.
THE THIRST – Jo Nesbo
HARRY HOLE IS BACK! There is great excitement surrounding this new thriller from hugely popular crime writer Jo Nesbo. A vampiric serial killer is loose on the streets of Oslo… the very idea should send a shiver down your spine. The cover is stark and punchy in black, white and acid yellow, with a velvety super-matt finish. The endpapers feature a map of Oslo, with key locations picked out. Find a safe place to enjoy this deliciously dark read.
VOID STAR – Zachary Mason
We don’t often get the chance to post science-fiction titles, but this one is a little special - a riveting, beautifully written, fugue-like novel of artificial intelligence, memory, violence and mortality from the author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey.
Set in a dystopian future, the global tides have reversed drowning New York and freezing Tokyo. In the remaining cities, the rich employ private armies – drones to keep out the multitudinous poor – and undergo yearly rejuvenation treatments at exclusive clinics.
Three disparate characters are drawn together: Irina – a freelance AI whisperer; Kern – a favella-dwelling street fighter; and Thales – survivor of an assassination attempt, now fitted with computer chip to keep him alive. None are safe as they are pushed together by forces just out of sight.
Void Star is a visionary, mind-bending trip into the unknown.
THE CORRESPONDENCE – J. D. Daniels
The amazing quotes just kept coming for this one – so we let them take over the cover.
As the novelist Harry Crews noted – Nothing gets you back in touch with yourself like a little of your own blood. J. D. Daniels more than tests this theory in six letters to nobody in particular as he lurches from ju-jitsu punchbag to janitor, adjunct professor to drunk, exterminator to dutiful son. En route he considers how far books, learning and psychoanalysis can get us, and how much we’re stuck in the mud.
The writing is feverish, witty, intimate and addictive. Get stuck in.
PUSSY - Howard Jacobson
Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasising about hookers. He is pugnacious, boastful, thin-skinned and egotistic; has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no ideas and no words in which to express them.
Could he, in that case, be the very leader to make the country great again?
Cover and inside illustrations by Chris Riddell
THE GOLDEN HOUSE - Salman Rushdie
Today we are very pleased to share the jacket for the new novel by Salman Rushdie.
We commissioned Jon Gray to create this striking design for Salman Rushdie’s timely novel about identity, truth, terror and lies.
Jon said: ‘The Golden House is the story of the rich and powerful Golden Family and their rise and fall in New York. At the centre of the book is the family mansion in downtown Manhattan. The opulent bird-cage seemed like a good way to represent both the family and their lives, and turning it into a New York townhouse seemed too good an opportunity to miss. It was such fun to make! The open door and scattered feathers hopefully hint at something else, without giving too much away. Printing the fine bars of the cage over the type gives the cover some depth and helps to integrate the very flat illustration. I loved this book and I’m very pleased with the way the cover turned out.’
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE – Ian Fleming
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of this James Bond classic, Ian Fleming publications are offering a unique chance for budding designers to show off their skills – design your own cover for From Russia With Love and share it on twitter, tagging @TheIanFleming and you win a limited Bentley edition of Casino Royale, worth £750. The competition closes on the 18th April 2017.
In the meantime as inspiration, here’s a little Bond history…
Main image: Our latest edition designed by Suzanne Dean. The CMYK team designed the rest of the series - check out the link:
http://vintagebooksdesign.tumblr.com/post/27630753986/vintage-007-behind-the-scenes
Small images, top left:
The
original cover for the first edition by artist Richard Chopping, published in
1957. It was Chopping’s first Bond book (the covers to previous books in the
series had been designed by Pat Marriott and Ian Fleming himself), and
therefore the first to adopt this iconic ‘trompe l’oeil’ style. The rose with a
dew drop was part of Fleming’s request for the cover, and the gun (a Smith
& Wesson .38 M&P special revolver with a sawn barrel) was sent to the
artist at Fleming’s request by Geoffrey Boothroyd - the character that Major
Boothroyd of Q branch was based on. Fleming had asked Boothroyd to send his
favourite gun to Chopping, so it is not actually a gun that is wielded in the
text.
Second:
This is a US Library edition,
published by Macmillan in 1957. The cover depicts the fight between Bond and
Red Grant on the Orient Express in a really interesting style, referencing
train schematics and an almost stencil-like use of silhouette.
Third: This cover, showing James Bond with Tatiana Romanova, is from the first UK paperback edition published by Great Pan in 1959. This depiction of Tatiana strays fairly significantly from the interior descriptions, however Bond is well represented, with his ‘unruly comma of hair’ and chamois leather holster. The cover suggests a pacey narrative through the placement of the speeding Orient Express at the base, and the strapline ‘Death-trap for James Bond’ is simple yet full of menace and intrigue.
Fourth:
The first US paperback of
the book comes from 1960, published by Signet. Interestingly, there is no
mention of James Bond himself on the cover, and instead we are treated to some
enticing reviews: ‘Upper Crust Low Life…Mickey Spillane in gentleman’s
clothing.’ Fitting this description, the imagery is more suggestive of pulp or
noir than cold war espionage. However, the top left corner features the gun and
rose motif from the UK first edition design by Richard Chopping.
Middle left:
Another Great Pan paperback
entry, this time published in the UK in 1962. The Orient Express bisects the
background of abstract, flame-like strokes, which in turn encircle and draw the
eye to Tatiana in the foreground. Here she is depicted closer to how Fleming
described, and the artist has emphasised her ‘Russian’ look through her attire.
The book has received a new strapline: ‘DEATH WITH DISHONOUR is Russia’s
sentence for JAMES BOND’, perfectly outlining SMERSH’s evil plan.
Second:
In 1965, Pan released a new
set of UK paperbacks with covers either by, or influenced by, Raymond Hawkey. The
Fabergé egg with the film inside isn’t directly from the novel, however the
plot revolves around Bond being caught (and filmed) in a honey trap set up by
SMERSH so it is evocative of surveillance and deception within an alluring and
emblematically Soviet exterior.
Third:
This
‘still life’ cover was published in 1974, as part of a set of editions in which
significant items from the plots of the books were showcased in a photographic
portrait. The dagger is from the ‘gipsy wrestling match’, the Turkish delight
is referencing Turkey (and the code word which Bond is told to follow in the
novel). It also alludes to the honey trap orchestrated by Rosa Klebb in which
Bond will be caught by Tatiana. As a departure from the previous editions, it
is Klebb and not Tatiana who features on the cover, face pierced by the wooden
fork. The arrangement also shows Turkish money and Turkish coffee.
Fourth:
This edition from Thomas
and Mercer was published in the US in 2012. The artist is Archie Ferguson, and
the design fits perfectly into the series where the black and white pattern
evocative of classic Russian decoration is highlighted by the brilliant red of
the title and the 007 in the circle.
Bottom left:
The Folio Society
illustrated edition features a cover created by artist Fay Dalton. Bond boards
the Orient Express, joining Tatiana who is eagerly awaiting him as they attempt
to flee the evil clutches of SMERSH. A
plume of steam from the train obscures Bond’s face and suggests uncertainty and
deception.
Bottom Middle: This edition was published in 2008 by Queen Anne Press, available as part of The Complete Works of Ian Fleming. Designed by Webb & Webb and finely-bound by Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the Orient Express is shown speeding away from Istanbul, represented by Hagia Sophia. The red star, a symbol associated with Russia, is seen on the top left of the back cover.
Bottom Right:
This edition is the German
adaptation of the UK edition first released by Penguin in 2008, Ian Fleming’s
centenary year. One of a full set of the novels illustrated by Michael Gillette
which featured the principal female lead of each book. Tatiana appears on the cover
in red, a colour symbolic of Cold War Russia. This is the Cross Cult German
edition, for which Gillette amended the cover with bespoke typography for the
German market. The German title of the novel has always featured ‘Moscow’ in
place of ‘Russia’.
