A mini-trend struck me this morning on the train as I was perusing my latest travel-reading, Dan Hind’s excellent The Threat to Reason. To my horror, I realised that anyone casually glancing at me and my book across the carriage might think that I was reading something trashy. Witness the cover:
The design is, of course, a witty parody of traditional pulp fiction jackets. But could someone glancing at me for less than a second really be expected to take this in? It was then that I thought back to my previous transit reading, Christopher Hitchens’s God is not Great—a high-energy source of trashy signals if ever there was one:
Evidently, a profound subversion of the visual language of publishing is taking place—and is quite possibly generating sales for heavyweight authors who deserve a mass audience. But, please, can someone bring out a Harry-Potterish “adult” version of these books, so that we intellectuals in our trains and cafés can retain the thrill of knowing that those around us know that we’re reading terribly clever stuff…
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On a train I was once reading War and Peace, and an attractive woman in her mid-20s sat down opposite me. She had a big hardback which was covered in the sans-cullote child from the musical of Les Miserables.
I gave her a self-deprecating nod – “oh, aren’t we educted middle class types, both reading massive tomes of European culture”. She looked confused, as though I were a total twat.
Anyway, about 15 mins later, when she placed the book on the table I saw the heading, something like “Horrible Hedwig’s Hogwarths Holiday.” Needless to say, she went down in my estimation. So! If young women in there mid-20s want to be appear attractive to me, they better stop reading Harry Potter and start reading Anna Karenina, and they better do it sharpish to!
Dearest daughter, apparently if you wish to avoid being pestered by fogies on the train, all you need do is conspicuously read Harry Potter. All my love, Dad.
Dear Sir:
The greatest ally of democracy is free speech. And the Christian God is great because he has created a universe with a space for freedom on our little planet. Therein lies his greatness – giving us more than an illusion of freedom.
There’s always a limit to how much irony one can bear when using public transport. Witty parodies do not travel well…
Dan Hind’s “Threat to Reason” is excellent. I heartily recommend it. I’ll be running an extended interview with him over on ReadySteadyBook.com at the beginning of July. A review of the book will be up on The Book Depository website next week too.
I’m with you, Tom, that the jacket, whilst good fun, and quite clever, grabs the attention for the wrong reason. Dan’s book is important and timely: I hope that it gets the readership it deserves.
Oh, I don’t know, I think it looks pretty … thought-provoking. True, part of me wanted Verso to insist that the book be given the sternly typographical treatment, like I was a French philosophe. But I always said that if I was going to be published I wanted to have a tentacled monster on the cover.
Some very serious books have had cartoonish covers in recent years. ‘The Best Democracy Money Can Buy’ and ‘Weapons of Mass Deception’ won’t win you many admiring glances in the coffee shop, but they are in their way very important books, I think.
Anyway, ‘The Threat to Reason’ is a hardback and looks ravishingly austere with the dustjacket off …
Embarassing books to be seen reading? Well mid way through reading “The Satanic Verses” some years ago I had to fly to the Middle East. I packed it away and took something less provocative for my flight. I didn’t fancy being the one they shot as an example if we got hijacked.
Perhaps the most embarassing book for the tube might be that little tome that came ab out five years back “Shit.”