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top left: David Pelham’s classic design (1972); top right: photography
by Lionel F Williams (Eye) and SOA / Photonica (Cogs) (1996).
bottom left and right: photography by Véronique Rolland (2000 & 2008).
In April this year I wrote about James Pardey’s excellent site devoted to book covers from the Penguin science fiction range. I’m often pointing to various [...]

The Drought, 1968; design by Richard Hollis, photography by Dr. J Comroe.
James Pardey contacted me earlier this week announcing his site devoted to Penguin Books’ science fiction covers. I posted some of my own dishevelled copies a while back and this news gives me an excuse to throw up another Ballard cover. Pardey’s site is [...]

I’ve never been all that keen on Alan Aldridge’s brand of psychedelic art but it’s worth noting here the (London) Design Museum retrospective which runs from 10 October to 25 January, 2009. Aldridge’s work as a designer and illustrator for Penguin Books in the Sixties impresses me more than his subsequent illustrated Beatles lyrics and [...]

Coralie at Penguin Books sent through these cover designs today, a splendid “collect the set” republication of the Sherlock Holmes stories which should be on the shelves early next month. This follows last year’s collection of similarly repackaged Edwardian thrillers which included Conan Doyle’s dinosaur tale, The Lost World. Having recently watched the Granada TV [...]

Detail from La Havane by René Portocarrero; photo by C. Marker.
This week’s book finds are a pair of titles I hadn’t come across before in these particular editions, another haul from the vast continent that is the Penguin Books back catalogue. Labyrinths I’ve had for years in a later edition (see below) but the [...]

Nice collection of old covers for Penguin Books on Joe Kral’s Flickr pages. Looking over these, many of which are very familiar even though I’ve never owned them, makes me aware of how many hours of my life must have been spent in secondhand bookshops. The David Pelham cover for A Clockwork Orange has always [...]