Several blogs have published their lists of the best book cover designs of 2009. Here is a round-up of the standouts: This year, The Book Design Review asked employees of three independent book stores to contribute to their Favorite Covers list. The three part post showcases the selections of staff from WORD in Brooklyn, NY, RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH, and The Book Table in Oak Park, IL. The design styles, like the books’ subject matter, vary greatly. But there are some stellar examples of good design, particularly The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Readers can vote for their own favorite design in the on-line polls. The Book Cover Archive takes the list one step further with their Top Ten of Covers of the ’00s post. Two covers were chosen to represent each year in the decade, among them, memorable designs for A Shortcut Through Time by George Johnson and The Murder by John Steinbeck.
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By Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Atria | 320pgs
Release Date: December 15, 2009
Nanny Returns, the much-anticipated sequel to the The Nanny Diaries, picks up twelve years after the original hit novel left off. Nan and her husband, “Harvard Hottie” Ryan, have returned to New York after a long period of living abroad to begin a new life. Amid the chaos of starting a business, renovating their home and adjusting to a new position at a pretentious private school, Nan re-connects with Grayer X, and his younger brother Stilton. To placate their feelings of abandonment at her departure over a decade ago, she vows to help the boys through their parents’ nasty divorce. As she is again sucked into the X family’s vicious society of privilege and power, she witnesses the damage that this life has done to the boys. These realizations, along with Ryan’s push to start a family, make Nan question whether or not she has the stomach for motherhood.
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Nearly 200 years after her death, Jane Austen remains one of the world’s best-loved authors. Much has been written about her work and life, and for decades it was widely accepted that she died from Addison’s disease, a rare disorder in which the adrenal gland does not produce enough hormones. However, CNN reports that social scientist Katherine White disputes the diagnosis and theorizes that Austen died of tuberculosis. An article for the British Medical Journal published in 1964, was the first to suggest Austen had Addison’s disease. White, who also suffers from the disease, recently read the article and felt the author’s symptoms did not add up. Sufferers often experience painful headaches and verbal difficulties. But in a letter to a friend written just two months before hear death, Austen states: “My head was always clear, and I had scarcely any pain.” Though this is only anectodal evidence from two centuries ago, endocrinology expert Kenneth Burman agrees there is some merit to White’s theory, due to the wide spread of tuberculosis during the author’s lifetime. Though he warns: “Retrospective diagnosis is very speculative. It’s unknowable with certainty.”
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Last year, close friends and business partners, Tom Matlack and James Houghton, engaged in several deep discussions about the true meaning of manhood. From those discussions, The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood was born. The new book features 31 essays by men from all walks of life, and portrays a wide spectrum of the male experience, from heartbreak to redemption. A 53-minute film documentary, of the same name, has also been released. “We really wanted to spark a national conversation on what it means to be a man, and to help the 30 million boys and girls in our country who don’t have a father,” states Tom Matlack in an interview with L.A. Times’ Jacket Copy. The goal for this project is to help men realize they are not alone. Many feel they have to struggle with emotional issues and societal pressures in silence. Matlack and Houghton hope the men’s real-life stories will be relatable in a non-threatening way. “By getting to know them and reading their stories, I’m better for it. Our hope is that the people who read the book feel the same way,” explains Matlack.
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By Greg Mortenson
Viking Adult | 448pgs
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan is Greg Mortenson’s touching follow-up to the bestselling Three Cups of Tea, and details his dogged efforts to fulfill his promise to build a school in the Wakhan Corridor. The Corridor, situated in a desolate part of northeastern Afghanistan, is home to the Kirghiz, and receives little government support for health or education. Mortenson and the international staff of his Central Asia Institute (CAI), affectionately called the “Dirty Dozen”, choose the village of Bozai Gumbaz as the site for the school, and work with local leaders to obtain building materials and labor for construction. The CAI must overcome threats of Taliban violence, an earthquake, ingrained opposition to educating girls, and even Mortenson’s own 8-day abduction, in order to finish the school and give the village children an opportunity for a better life.
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New York Public Library logos old (left) and new (right).
The New York Public Library has updated its brand identity for the digital age. The new logo, a bolder more streamlined version of a lion profile inside a circle, is designed to work both on-line and in print. The simple shapes and smooth curves, along with a new color pallet, allow the mark to be used in a variety of sizes and resolutions without losing any detail. Kievit, a new sans-serif typeface, was chosen to compliment the logo with its contemporary look. The re-design, the first in over 25 years, was done in-house by the library’s creative team, and is based on the stone lions that adorn the main library steps. “It’s primarily based on Fortitude [the northern lion], but it’s a combination of both,” explains Marc Blaustein, art director for the library system. “The angle is Fortitude, but some of the features are inspired by Patience.”
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By Daniel Asa Rose
William Morrow ©2009 | Hardcover 320pgs
What do a knock-off Cartier watch, a mail order bride and a black market kidney have in common? They are just three of the things that Daniel Asa Rose works to help his cousin, Larry, procure during their trip to China. Larry’s Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant – and Save His Life (what a mouthful!) is the journalist’s real-life account of the lengths the pair go to in order save Larry from kidney failure.
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By Sue Grafton
Putnam Adult | 416pgs
ReleaseDate: December 1, 2009
Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone returns in U is for Undertow, the 21st installment of Sue Grafton’s beloved series. The book opens in April of 1988, when a man named Michael Sutton arrives at Kinsey’s office, claiming to have recovered memories related to an unsolved kidnapping of a young girl in 1972. Though Kinsey is skeptical about Sutton’s story, his offer to pay in cash induces her to take on the case, and an unmarked grave is soon discovered. As Kinsey begins to uncover decades-old secrets, new information comes to light about Sutton’s past and the validity of his memories is called into question. It is up to Kinsey to unravel the truth from a tangled web of falsehoods, and get justice for the young girl abducted decades ago.
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Seventy-one years after a 16th century Rabbinic Bible was looted in a Nazi raid, it was finally returned to its rightful home in Vienna’s Jewish community. Published during 1516-1517, the Bible contains landmark treatises by leading rabbinical figures of the medieval period, such as 11th century French scholar Rashi and 13th century Spanish scholar Nachmanides. The two-volume Bomberg/Pratensis Rabbinic Bible was part of the rare book collection in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG) library seized in Austria on Nov. 9, 1938, during the infamous Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). Over the next four years, large portions of the IKG library were parceled out to Nazi outposts in Poland, Lower Silesia and North Bohemia (Czech Republic). The Bible didn’t resurface again until June 25, 2009, when the New York-based auction house Kestenbaum & Company listed the item in its catalog. An investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed that the ancient volumes were the rightful property of the IKG library, and had been imported into the U.S. illegally on March 19, 2009. When the investigating agents submitted proof of the Bible’s true ownership to Kestenbaum, the auction house promptly removed the item from auction and agreed to return it to the rightful owners.
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By Michael Crichton
Harper | 320 pages
Release Date: November 24, 2009
Michael Crichton’s last book Pirate Latitudes is a swashbuckling tale of adventure, full of intrigue, Spanish gold and bloody betrayal. Set in the untamed colony of Jamaica in 1665, the capital city of Port Royal teems with rowdy taverns and raucous bordellos. The only laws that rule the population are greed and self-preservation. When Captain Charles Hunter learns that the galleon, El Trinidad, has just arrived in port heavy with gold, he seizes the opportunity to make his own fortune. Aligning himself with an influential ally, Hunter gathers a team of cutthroats to hijack the gallon and relieve the reviled Spanish of their riches. This ragged band of thieves faces deadly opposition in Cazalla, a commander favored by the King of Spain, who fiercely guards the ship and her cargo. The raid erupts in a violent, adrenaline-filled attack, with both sides willing to fight to the death in order to possess the treasure.
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