This year for the first time more ebooks were sold than hardbacks.
Publishers have responded by bringing out exquisite new releases and
revamps of classics
In his recent Booker acceptance speech, Julian Barnes did the usual
polite thing of thanking his editors and his agent. But then, just when
everyone thought he was done, he veered off in an entirely unexpected
direction to pay animated tribute to Suzanne Dean, "the best book
designer in town", who had turned his prize-winning novel into "a
beautiful object". The Sense of an Ending
does indeed come clad in a lovely cover, an elegiac visual riff on
dandelion clocks, which darkens at the edge to black, an idea of
mourning that then runs over the edges of the pages themselves. At least
it does in the early editions. Such little touches are both fiddly and
expensive (which comes to the same thing) so subsequent reprintings have
left off the darkened page ends. It's a decision, Dean herself admits,
that is going to make the first editions of the novel just that little
bit more desirable in years to come. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/02/beautiful-book-covers
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