Who says Morrissey can’t write a classic?
As you’ve probably heard by now, last week saw the publication of Morrissey’s Autobiography by Penguin Classics in the UK. The book’s release met no shortage of hand-wringing online and… Read more »
Previewing this season’s manly books for men
It’s a truism of the publishing industry that any book with a dog on its cover will sell. (We’ve been known to try it ourselves here at Melville House on… Read more »
Brief notes on The New Yorker redesign
When The New Yorker was founded, in 1925, by Harold Ross, it was conceived as both a bastion and a parody of cosmopolitan sophistication: As Ross famously put it in… Read more »
Books that give new meaning to the word “paperback”
For a new display installed at the New York Public Library, artist and designer Kelli Anderson has teamed up with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings to create a diorama of… Read more »
Vintage book covers from the Arabic world
The Internet abounds with scans of vintage book jackets. From the Northern and Eastern European illustrators on 50 Watts to the seedy pulp on Cover Browser and five decades of paperbacks on… Read more »
A century later, has E.M. Forster’s happier year finally arrived?
In the opening scene of E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, an adolescent Maurice Hall takes a long walk with his prep school teacher, Mr. Ducie, to learn about the mysteries of… Read more »
Meet the artists documenting America’s secret trials
With media attention focused almost exclusively this week on the NSA leaker Edward Snowden, currently evading criminal charges in Hong Kong, it’s easy to forget that closer to home, another… Read more »
The art of cover design at Random House
In a new video created for the Inside Random House series, which takes viewers behind the scenes at the publisher’s offices, book designers explain their creative processes and the unique… Read more »
How to redesign a classic, or, The Bell Jar strikes back
Book designers are used to working quietly behind the scenes. If authors are the star athletes in publishing, designers are more like the training staff—there to make sure the stars… Read more »
Writing a novel? Don’t quit your day job.
In his new book Daily Rituals, Mason Currey examines the creative processes that have kept writers, composers, and artists going throughout history. One secret to success? Keep your day job. As… Read more »