Books spotted this month at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry
Actually, this installment should be called “Spinespotting in SA”. As a guy who draws and paints book covers for a living, I love seeing books face-out, but in bookstores, they’re usually not displayed that way. The spine is oh-so-important to the visibility and shelf life of a book in the marketplace.
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Brent Weeks
BEYOND THE SHADOWS
Orbit
Design by Peter Cotton
Art by Calvin Chu
I’m not sure if Orbit started the fad of hooded figures on white backgrounds, but if they didn’t, they’ve certainly perfected it. The spines of these Brent Weeks mass market paperback really pop forward on a bookstore shelf, largely due to the hooded figure on the white background. Note that this big figure causes all of the typography to get small, and Orbit’s chosen to have the titles all read with zero degrees of rotation. That’s a fair amount of spine type to juggle, but it all balances very nicely. Designers have gotta love authors with short names — those always seems to open up fresh design possibilities.
Mark Chadbourn
AGE OF MISRULE Trilogy
Pyr
Design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
Art by John Picacio
It’s nice to see these on the shelves as a set. Editorial director (and 2009 Chesley Award-winning art director) Lou Anders made the call to put the big number at the top of these spines. That large treatment conveniently signals to readers that these are a series. The common spine design across all three trade paperbacks reinforces that as well. Note the missing Pyr logo on the first book, WORLD’S END. This wasn’t intentional, but a printing error. So if you manage to find one of these first editions without the logo, you may have yourself a collectible. 
That said, these books are terrific epic fantasy reads and that fact alone is enough reason to grab them.
Sarah Micklem
WILDFIRE
Scribner
Design by Uncredited
Art by Mark Stutzman
The WILDFIRE spine caught my attention because it’s unusual to see this much hand-illustrated typography on a book spine these days. The Mieville spine alongside it uses contrast to grab attention with Mieville’s name sized big against a white band. That kind of contrast generally attracts the eye first. However, the WILDFIRE spine is so unusual that it compelled me to pick it up just to see what it is.
Brian Selznick
THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET
Scholastic Press
Design by Brian Selznick & David Saylor
Art by Brian Selznick
This is the spine of a YA book that has the virtue of being 2″ wide — huge real estate for opportunity, in spine design terms. Hard to argue with the simplicity of this half-face filling the spine and staring out at the buyer. This book — standing alone and spine-out — is more compelling than the faced-out adjacent books. I think this is one of the simplest and most effective spine designs I’ve ever seen.
I concur on the big numbers on the spine for a series. I once recommended a friend read Dan Simmon’s _Hyperion_. Unfortunately, the mass market PB edition split the book in two parts, and the first part made no mention of the fact it was part one of two. He was so annoyed by running into the cliffhanger at the end with no warning that he refused to read anything else Simmons wrote, despite my protest that it wasn’t Simmons’ fault the publisher was an idiot.
Agreed on the Selznick spine, but I do have to wonder how big the book is to require a two inch thick volume. We aren’t used to YA books having huge word counts.
Hi, Dennis –
The Selznick is an amazing volume. I snagged this quote from Wikipedia where Selznick explains: “With 284 pictures between the book’s 511 pages, the book depends equally on its pictures as it does the actual words. Selznick himself has described the book as ‘not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.’”
Was so impressed that I bought a copy for myself because I love storytelling that is “both/and” rather than the usual “either/or”.
I’m pretty sure that Orbit trend started post-Assassin’s Creed, so I think they’re capitalizing on a different market’s heavy advertising of similar subject matter. Agreed about the Wildfire spine – I really like the beautiful design at the bottom in particular.
My husband had been trying to get me to read the Brent Weeks series for weeks – it was the hooded figure on the white background that caught his eye. I finally read the series – straight through – a couple of weeks ago. A definite winner!
Have I mentioned a most definite pet peeve? I know I have to Pablo Defendi. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE having to turn my head 90 degrees to read the title of a book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi,
I would like to invite reader’s to check out my new children’s fantasy, “Gateway to DreamWorld.”
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/GatewayToDreamWorld.html
It has been receiving rave reviews and we hope to see the story on the big screen soon.
Brenda Estacio
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Hi, Nicole — Yeah, good theory re: Assassin’s Creed. I can see where that influence might cause books to want to capitalize. Makes sense to me, at any rate….
Hi, Christine! — Good to hear from you! Wow, then you must be hating the vast majority of spine designs because most make you turn your head. That’s for sure.
I wonder how many other folks share the same peeve?
On turning your head to read spine titles: I worked for a woman who put spine titles in notebooks so they read up instead of down, contrary to most standards. I asked her about it one day as it made me a little crazy. It seems her head was a bit tilted to the left and it was easier for her to read them that way, so I expect she agrees with Christine that having them read down the spine was not comfortable at all. (And since she was the boss, I just learned to live with it.)
Hi, Susan –
I’m OK with titles reading sideways from top to bottom, but reading them from bottom to top WOULD drive me crazy. Whenever I see that, I automatically flip the object back and forth, thinking that there must be a printing error. Doesn’t seem right to me….:)
Actually, re Susan Froebel’s comment, this is one of those weird cultural things. In the US, we print titles on spines “top to bottom”. In Europe, I believe “bottom to top” is the standard. I’ve no idea when and why the practices diverged, but the way we do it isn’t the way it’s done everywhere.
Re the Selznick, if it’s half full page pictures, yeah, it will be a thick volume. I’ll have to look for it. It sounds fascinating. Many years ago I saw a book in the library which was a novel with no text – it was done entirely as woodcuts. There appears to be a whole category of such things: http://store.doverpublications.com/0486468895.html So Selznick is working in some interesting territory.
Think about folks who have had any kind of spinal or neck injury – twisting your head into an unnatural posion is not good and not comfortable. Or folks with eye problems.
So instead, I just pay attention to the covers – much more interesting! And bookstores have the habit of putting the most popular or newest books (hard or soft) faceforward anyway.
Good point, Dennis, re: the European spines. Will have to examine those more closely next time. I don’t recall the reverse being their standard but it’s certainly possible!
Christine — I like the way you think.