BY IT'S COVER

Duma Key, by Stephen King

The cover of Stephen King’s “Duma

Key” can’t be more clear. There is a

beach. I think we can assume it’s the

beach of a key. Tsunami-sized waves totally

defy the tidal pull of the moon and

a hot pink house miraculously survives

both the waves and the lightning directly

striking it. The pink of the house even

matches the pink in the sunset going on

behind the storm. The house may survive

this tempest, but no such luck for

Stephen King’s name, written in a shiny

typeface—it seems to be sinking into the

ocean. So we know there’s a storm and an

island—I guess the mystery lies with the

orange picnic basket that somehow also

survives the storm.

Memory, by Philippe Grimbert

A black and white photograph depicts

a mystery person, pail in hand, walking

away from the potential reader over a

covered bridge towards a sunny day. The

book’s cover offers extensive metaphorical

possibilities: the light at the end of

the tunnel! Traversing the bridge of life!

Receding into the blur of memory! However,

the actual subject-matter of “Memory”

remains rather mysterious. At least

we can rest assured that the book is not

only a bestseller in France and a winner

of the Prix Goncourt, but also the winner

of Elle Magazine’s Reader’s Prize.

The Commoner

By Jonathan Burnham

Schwartz

Out Now

Nan A. Talese

Nothing Drops in ‘Before It Falls’

When authors, editors, publishers, and their marketing minions convene

to discuss what shall adorn their precious new creation, many questions

must trouble them. “How do we seduce readers? Do we assume they

can’t actually read the title and need some symbolism? Or do we just

put something on the cover so completely strange that they must immediately

buy the book to find out what lies inside?” From the looks of the

books in the front of the Harvard Books Store today, there’s no one right

answer.

The Philosopher’s Apprentice, by James

Morrow

The cover of “The Philosopher’s Apprentice”

takes a middle-of-the-road approach

by dividing the cover in half. In

the bottom left corner is what looks like

an early printing press title page for a Platonic

treatise. This apprentice must actually

be a legitimate philosopher—he’s

read Plato. On the upper right, it looks

like a Renaissance artist started making

out with his nude model! Or has his

statue come to life? Although the alabaster-

white woman has fiery red human

hair, she’s without nipples. The painting

behind them, though, looks rather impressionist.

The confusion! What time

period will this work actually take place

in? Maybe that’s the question the philosopher

must answer.

The New Granta Book of the American

Short Story, by Richard Ford

If the book has “American” in the

title, it must have Old Glory on the cover—

that’s a given. But why stick with the

clichéd image of an actual flag flying in

the wind if one can look at a peeling rendition

painted onto a pile of stacked logs?

Forget the fact that it’s technically illegal

to put the national symbol on anything;

these editors obviously think an image of

the American flag is only truly American

if it’s down-home, peeling, and on a pile

of logs.

—Meredith S. Steuer