Cover stars

Well, it's all about books on the blog at the moment, isn't it? I suppose it's timely: the run-up to Christmas is a traditional high point in the bookselling calendar. It's when all those godawful celebrity autobiographies and TV tie-in cookbooks find their way into the homes of an unsuspecting public. Sigh.

Still, it's not all bad in the book world, and to prove it, check out The Book Cover Archive Blog where the authors present a round-up of the decade's best book covers: some new for old (eg Camus, Steinbeck); some new for new.

This lovely picture-led blog runs alongside The Book Cover Archive, which "presents an archive of book cover designs and designers for the purpose of appreciation and categorization [sic]", and was brought to my attention (again!) by my library pal.

I've chosen to show this cover, by Stefanie Posavec, of Burroughs and Kerouac's Hippos (written in 1945, pre Beats, but only published a year ago by Penguin) because it was mentioned in The American Scene lecture I went to and blogged about last week , and I thought it was a nice little link.