Jackets Required: The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri

By Fwis -- Publishers Weekly, 6/26/2008 11:00:00 AM

This is the latest installment in a weekly column by Fwis, a graphic design group that blogs on book jacket design. The Fwis designers judge a recent book by its cover each week on PublishersWeekly.com.

Title: The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri: A Novel
Designer: Paul Buckley
Author: David Bajo
Publisher: Viking

When reviewing Against the Machine's cover, we felt that the intersection of old and new was clumsily done. In the case of The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri, we have a full-on integration of contemporary and classic. The care that went into this cover is astounding; holes delicately drilled in a non-English text so that it doesn't distract; the ribbons pulled through and the type perfectly distorted. 'A Novel' was written in with a pencil before the piece was scanned, instead of an afterthought . This is all on top of the fact that this is a mystery book about books, and that there are clues woven in an out of the story in a classic whodunit; therefore we not only have a well-executed design but a thoroughly considered conceptual connection.