The end's not near, it's here.

Yes, the end is here. Thanks to Band of Horses for the title. And I think I've saved the best to last, well what I think is super pretty. 

This is for You by Rob Ryan was published in 2007, and when it first came out I pleaded with my sister, working at vicbooks at the time, to buy it for me. Being the loving sister, she did. And it is beautiful. Here's a picture of the dust jacket and book itself. The book explores themes of love and loneliness, and the prominent colours on the covers help to emphasis this. The thing that first caught my eye with this book with the bright red pinned against a very white background. As well as this, the cut-out nature of the book intrigued me. As did the endorsement by Sophie Dahl; the same cut-out lettering has been used for the endorsement, and she's pretty awesome - writing and modelling and stuff. The continuation of the red to the back cover is also a nice way to continue a theme. 
Before you ask, no I did not take this picture upside-down. When you take the dust jacket off, this is how the book looks - upside-down. I don't know if mine's an awkward dud or if this is how it's supposed to be - I've never seen another copy. But anyway, the red theme has continued through from the dust jacket, which makes me happy - red is the colour of love, people, and that's what this book is all about. If I saw this book on the shelf, without it's jacket, I'd still pick it up. The simplicity of the cover alone is enough to intrigue me, plus the bell on the front is pretty cute.

To the inside! Well almost the inside, to the end papers and dust jacket flaps! I'm a very sentimental person, and a bit of a hopeless romantic, so the first thing I saw when opening the book was the left-hand flap here. I love it. The typeface is the same as the cover - a handmade sans-serif that's actually pretty easy to read when you take the time. This isn't a book to rush through, the pages can be confusing, as you'll see soon. The endpapers are beautiful too, it's the first time I've seen ones that incorporate the actual title of the book into the pattern. 

As an illustrated book, there are no page numbers, which is nice. Each page does stick to a frame, as you'll see in later pictures. Ryan sticks to the margins, probably so no picture is wrecked if the cutting goes wrong. The green of this page stands out wonderfully, like the red, against the white stock. The green also tied in nicely to the leaves in this spread, as the man walks and thinks. The text is in the same all caps as the cover and flaps, enforcing his walking and thinking and making it super easy to read. So simple, and so lovely. 

This is probably the hardest spread in the book to read. The pages mirror each other, as a son and mother talk. The colours compliment each other, while reflecting the gender of each character. The typeface is still the cutout style and a sans-serif, however it's in lowercase and much harder to read. This comes back to this being a book you read because you want to know what it has to say. It may make you work hard, but it's worth it.

Here's another full page spread. You can even see the stitches for the binding - still good quality. This has the easy-to-read all caps sans-serif, and really is just a beautiful page. You can see in this spread, and the previous one, the way Ryan does keep inside the invisible margins. By being consistent, it helps the reader to become familiar (to a basic level) with how each page will be laid out. I also like they way 'that' is stretched out over the two pages, there's no effort on his cutting to cram it or unbalance the heart.

I just wanted to throw this spread in because it shows the theme of loneliness that's explored with love through the book. The first time I looked at it, I read 'I am not alone' but missed the 'And I wrote and wrote'. Ryan's ability to create a stunning piece of visual art that acts as great narrative too. This is one of the pages that you can actually see that the images are Ryan's cutout pieces of paper - bottom right-hand corner. Not sure if it's intentional, but it adds to this spread, since he tells the reader nothing's gonna happen until you start, and he started cutting and clearly never stopped. He has a store even!

Last spread I promise! It's the last pages of the book, so it kinda has to be anyway... I love that he's kept the fun cut-out for the dedication, while switching to a more traditional sans-serif for the imprint. It makes it super easier to read, and this is important information for some people. As with most illustrated books, the imprint appears at the back of the book. It doesn't disrupt the flow of the book, and since most people reading this book won't actually need to know this information, it makes the most sense.
I see new things in This is for You every time I look at it, which is exactly what a good book should offer - continuous learning.


Man, this post has the best design ever! So proud of myself, it's only taken a few posts to get the hang of blogspot... But anyway, that's it from me about book design, my scrapbook is due in today. Unless something looks super awesome, then maybe I'll share it with you.


Until next time,
K.

The Babysitters Club, part two.

Here in New Zealand we have an obsession, and that's with cookbooks. I don't know why, but we do.  While babysitting I took note of a couple, including one by my favourite, Jamie Oliver. You may think Nigella is my favourite, given my post about her, but I love Jamie, he's just wonderful.

Michael Joseph, 2000

Following the success of his first book, The Return of the Naked Chef was published to accompany the BBC series The Naked Chef. Look at that grin on the front! That's what sells these books, Oliver's insane passion for his work and that he's the son every mother wants. The spaced, uncrowded cover design makes it a pleasure to look at. Oliver's yellow top and grin catch the eye easily, and the giant JAMIE OLIVER will make you look at this because, let's face it, he's great.

Title page, dedication

Imprint, contents, introduction

I think my favourite thing about this book is that no page is wasted. No doubt this book would have been expensive to produce, but since the sales would've been fantastic, no cost is too high for Jamie. A nice, simple, and spaced sans-serif is used consistently throughout the book. As a beautifully illustrated book, it makes sense to use the spread to show the picture of Jamie cooking in all his glory for the title page - it brings it home that it's all about him and his cooking just by turning to the first few pages. It's well acknowledged by Jamie that he has Jules, his wife, in his life - he never hides the fact, which I'm sure wasn't the BBC's idea. The dedication to her is simple and lovely, I let out a little 'aww' when I first saw it. The red of the typeface is repeated throughout the book, and as the first instance, I like to think it shows his love nicely. The imprint is simple and traditional - using a serif, and not trying to be something it's not. The contents uses the same colour from the dedication, as does the introduction coupled with a lovely picture of the man himself again. The introduction is very 'Jamie', and as the text goes right to the ends of the page I can imagine there were some issues with the cutting of the book at the printer. I love the simpleness of the contents page - very basic, spacious, and super easy to read. The designer didn't feel the need to fill the whole page with useless information, which is much appreciated since I find cooking books can be daunting.

Section markers

Here are two examples of section markers, which are listed on the contents page. Each of the section markers are a double-page spread in black and white. The marker on the left, fish and shellfish, shows Joe, Jamie's regular person at the market. The homeliness of this picture brings the book back to Jamie and lets the reader in to his life. The typeface is the same sans-serif, with Joe's name in the same red as before, and the section title changes colour from black to white depending on the most appropriate one. This is a great choice, changing it if need be, as I've already said in a previous post, it can be a disaster for the reader to stick to one colour. 

Instead of looking at the obvious recipe for the last picture, I though I'd look at the actual last pages of the book, or at least the index right now. The margins around the text block are traditional in sizes, giving the reader plenty of room to hold the book open when need be. The bottom right-hand side has a nice running header and page number, and due to the margin it's easy to locate this. The list of recipes are easily formatted with the main ingredients in the same red, and recipe titles in black. The page numbers in roman are the recipes themselves, while the bold ones indicate illustrations; a v on the left-hand side offer vegetarian recipes. I really like the last pages of books - I love non-fiction as a genre, and would like to learn more about bibliographies and indexes. Yes, I am that cool.
Almost done for the scrapbook, look forward to it!
K.

Typeface fails.

It's not secret that I love The Beatles. Everyone that knows me know this small fact about me. It's also not a huge secret that I really do enjoy Shakespeare, Twelfth Night's easily my favourite. However, I don't particularly care for Paul McCartney (George all the way), and a book of Shakespeare's play my mum picked up is just slightly terrible. We'll start with Paul.

Howard Sounes, HarperCollins, 2010

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney is the most comprehensive biography of McCartney around. Released in 2010, it covers his early life in Liverpool, The Beatles, Linda, Wings, Lennon's death, and of course the Heather Mills saga. McCartney's life has been filled with tragedy and success, and at a lovely 634 pages, this book seriously covers it all. This cover incorporates most of McCartney's life in a simple and attractive way. Musical instruments, a pedestrian crossing and bright colours surround a very honest picture of the name himself. Looking his age, there's no attempt to hide the fact he's getting on with life, no matter how many up and downs he's thrown. The name alone would attract people towards this book on the shelf, and the cover design just enhances the want of a reader to have it on their shelf. That's the reason I bought it, I'm intrigued by Paul's life, but he's definitely third equal for my favourite Beatle. The typeface is a basic sans-serif, with McCartney's handwriting used for his name. The sans-serif works on the cover, it's nice and easy to read making it attractive for readers. Just wait until you see inside...

Inside cover, half title page, 'also by', and title page.

Imprint, contents, contents cont., and first section marker.

Here're the prelim pages for Fab. The red inside cover repeats from the thin red border on the cover design. The typeface is a sans-serif also continued from the cover, the use of white mimics the paper which I really like - it stands out well on the dark red and it's easy to read. Throughout these pages, the only change in typeface comes from 'HarperCollinsPublishers'  on the title page, and the use of a typewriter-like typeface for the contents - this continues through the book for each section title, chapter title, and A headings within chapters. These pages are all easy to read, however using a sans-serif for the imprint is something I haven't seen in non-fiction before. I understand that it's just the typeface they're using and the designer is being consistent, but for important information a serif would be much more suitable.

Now this is where the book gets really interesting. As you can see on the right here, a nice 1 is in a circle (a continuing theme), the chapter title and A heading are in the same typeface as the title, as is the B heading in the second picture (The Quarry Men). Each of these elements are great, easy to read and distinguished for the reader to follow along. But the body text, oh the body text. It's in the same sans-serif as the prelim pages. Terrible. A serif is usually used for books with a narrative, and as a long biography, you'd think they'd have used one! This sans-serif is still easy enough to read, the characters are spaced and each page is justified. The main thing that's put me off reading this book if because I'm not used to it, and I find it a bit unsettling. Perhaps others didn't mind, but I think there's a time and a place for sans-serif fonts, and a long narrative story isn't one of them.

Usborne, 2006, illustrations by Elena Temporin.

Now to Shakespeare.
This is Stories from Shakespeare, the book takes 10 of his stories and re-writes them in to 'a lively, easy-to-read style', according to the blurb. I believe Mum picked this up at a second-hand store because that's just what she does sometimes. Dad started flicking through it and promptly gave up, for reasons you will see in a minute. Firstly, this cover. I do like it. It's bright enough to catch attention, without making the three witches from Macbeth look too exciting or happy. The typeface for the title and Usborne on the spine, as well as bring shiny and silver, gives a modern but still traditional feel to the book. The blurb uses a slightly-serif typeface, that links to the traditional feel that the title gives.

Imprint, title page, and contents.

The brightly blue background of the imprint and title page spread catches the eye very easily, and the typefaces of the title have come through from the cover. The typeface of the imprint, illustrator etc., is the typeface that is continued throughout the book, including the contents page. Each of these pages are designed beautifully, they're easy to read, and hold the attention of the reader well. However, now you will see why Dad put it down so abruptly.

Oh Macbeth, you're not hard to read. The black, slightly-serif typeface stands out easily against this yellow-cream background. You can see where the heading is, and where printers' flowers have been inserted to indicate a break. This is all well and good, but then the next picture tells all.
BAM. I can understanding wanting to be consistent with one colour for the text, but where the background is darker, you can hardly read the text. This was one of the issues Dad had when going through this book, and his other was actually the size of the text - apparently it's too small. I can read it, and kids probably can, but I can understand the difficulty. So back to the colours, I've mentioned before it's pretty OK to change the typeface colour if the illustrations call for it. The whole things makes me pretty angry, it looks ugly and, just like Dad, it'll turn people of even reading the book. Silly choice Usborne.


More to come, 
K.

Awesome? Well, clearly.

Michael Chabon, a name most commonly associated with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys. As I looked through vicbooks the other day for books to take pictures of, I came across his name in the in the children's section. 

Illustrated by Jake Parker, HB, 2011, HarperCollins Children's Books.

Yes, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man with Moskowitz the Awesome Dog. Crazy man for a dog. The use of colour on the cover, and throughout the book for that matter, is fantastic. Awesome, one might say. The yellow and red in the title tie in nicely to Awesome Man's sweet outfit. The darker Space background helped enhance the colours of Awesome Man, while they've used a nice insert for his dog. The simplicity of the image on the back of the cover is nice, taking away from the busy front a bit. Also the mere three lines about Chabon is great, no need to flaunt his success. 

End papers

Title page

For a children's book, attention to detail, I think, is key. I'm sure most children don't let you skip pages when reading to them, and the end papers are a great example of pages that don't have to look pretty but the effort is definitely worth it. They are very simple, using different images of Awesome Man and repeating them, but it's enough to catch the eye and make you want to stop and look at them.
The title page captures Awesome Man in all his glory. The typeface of the title is very classic in terms of comic books and superheroes in general. Of course he's holding it up because 1. that's just awesome, and 2. it makes complete sense for kids to love him. The colours come through from the front, and the black strip along the bottom creates a 3D element to the image, as well as enhancing the colour for the author and illustrator's names.

Here are a couple of sample pages. The text colour changes depending on the background image. This is a great idea, especially for illustrated books, not to stick to conventions but go wherever the book needs to go. The black stands out perfectly in the first picture due to the bright colours (it's hilarious, click on it, and read it). The bottom picture uses white perfectly for the darker image. The whole book uses a sans-serif typeface, which, like I've mentioned before, is perfect for kid's books. This sans-serif is simplistic and nicely spaced, making it easy for a child to follow and read themselves. The pages themselves are wonderfully designed; the first uses boxed information really well to create a methodical and easy way to read the book, while the second runs left-to-right, up-down giving a logical rhythm. 

Imprint

I really enjoyed this page, with the dedications are in keeping with the superhero/comic book feel of the book. You'll find the imprint for most children's books in the back of the book, I'm not 100% sure why this is. But the red background here links to the end papers (look back up), and the black sans-serif typeface stands out well again here. 


Lots more to come (assignments due super soon!),


K.

Rebel, Rebel.

Don't worry, my face isn't a mess. I was just given dirty looks by three different staff members at Whitcoulls yesterday while I took pictures of a book. It's actually an older book than I thought, but it's very pretty and ties in to an app that Faber and Faber released. It is, of course, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. 

Lookin' pretty swish on the shelf.

Edited by Eliot's second wife, Valerie, after his death, the book consists of facsimiles and transcripts of his original drafts. The transcripts clearly translate Eliot's incredibly messy handwriting and original comments, as well as comments by Valerie and annotations by Ezra Pound. The cover, as you can see above, is nice and simple but stands out well on the shelf. I was just killing time in the store, but saw this and started taking pictures of it. Here's a close up of the cover.

Someone likes three colours.

The cover is so simple and elegant I love it. The red lines make the title stand out even more than it already does, and ties in nicely with the F&F logo. Some may not like the use of all caps for the cover, but I don't mind it. I also love the constant use of a serif font, which is consistent throughout the book.

Inside flap and half title page.

Also by and title page.

Imprint and contents.

Editorial and quote.

Here are all the prelim pages, starting with half title, other works and title, imprint and contents, and editorial note and quote. All of these pages use the same serif font found on the cover. All of these are super-easy to read, the use of caps, roman and italics are all very appropriate, helping guide the reader to important details.

Inside page.

This is the only picture I took where you can see the page number for the book in the bottom right-hand corner. Now take a look at the picture below. As you can see in the centre top of each page, the page numbers are shown from the original text. The use of square brackets around the actual page numbers help the reader to tell the difference between the two sets of numbers, while keeping the integrity of Eliot's original work.

Another example.

Also, as you can see, the attention to detail held in each reproduced page is immense. They have thrown lines through at exactly the same angles (check out below for more examples). The editorial note explains that Pound's annotations are in red, Vivien Eliot's (his first wife) are in italics, and the rest of them are Eliot's. The use of colour and formatting to show the different points of view on the text is great for someone studying Eliot's work, or even just an interested reader.
The detail in the reproduced pages is fantastic, I can barely read Eliot's handwriting in most of the pictures, but his wife clearly knew what he was on about. 

This one's my favourite. Clearly attacked by Pound, the second to and last paragraphs show red lines crossing through the words just like on the opposite page. Lines come sprouting off, circles surround clumps of words, and once vertical writing becomes easy to read.


This is an excellent book, worthy of anyone's shelf. Plus Eliot had a super interesting life, just take a look for yourself.


More to come, K.

I don't like...

Mondays, do you ask? No, well, not always. Spiders? Yes. So much yes. Ew. But what I really don't like is the book design I'm going to talk about now. Yes, I'm talking about flippin' flipback books. 

Four titles out of 18. Thanks to vicbooks Pipitea for the books. Apologies for all the photos,
they're not great.

Originally designed in the Netherlands, the flipback book opens vertically with the pages turning from bottom to top. According the flipback website '...you get a full length novel in little more than the size of a smartphone.' They're actually 12cm by 8cm, and around 1.5cm - they've managed to keep them all around the same width despite the differing lengths of the original texts. On average, they weigh less than 145 grams and are printed on a very light and thin, almost Bible-paper paper. You'll see some shots further down of the insides.

So above are the spines of four of the titles I've picked out - Misery, Pride and Prejudice, Cloud Atlas and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I've got close ups of Misery and Cloud Atlas further down this post. From first glance, these books look nice. The titles stand out well in a basic san-serif, and a different colour for title and author. The colour of the title actually ties in to the cover image, which you'll see in the next picture.

Covers, looking all pretty. The publisher on the cover alternates between Hodder, Sceptre
and John Murray. I assume this is depending on which imprint currently holds rights?

So here are the covers of the four. They're all covers I've seen before, with the exception of P&P. And I don't really like it at all - there are many, many covers of Austen's novel and it seems odd to pick one so plain compared to the others. I mean, flowers are fine but they're not on the same level as the typewriter for Misery. Or at least that's what I think. The other three are great though, the cover and spines link together nicely and below you'll see Cloud Atlas open fully.

Look how nice and pink it is!

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this cover is an adapted version of the original - someone correct me if I'm wrong! I love it though. The colours stand out, contrasting the pink and blue works so well.The title has an awesome pattern running through it. I'm also really enjoying how short the blurb is, however I'm not enjoying it as a whole. We had a session on blurb writing, and this one screams 'no' to me now. Back in the day I wouldn't have minded, but now I can't allow the author's name to be used to describe the book - a book shouldn't need it's author's name to describe it! Also, as you might be able to see, it's $27.99. Not exactly cheap when the paperback of this book is only $28.99. I guess the convenience the size?

I just realised I didn't get a picture of this, but thanks to the internet I can explain what I'm talking about! Check out the picture below.

Check out the cover and spine... Ooo!

Ooo indeed! As you can (hopefully) see, the spine and front cover aren't attached. The text block is stuck on to the back cover, but not to the spine or front cover. This is so the book holds itself open more easily than you having to push down on the pages of a hardback to make it stay open by itself. This is quite a cool design; my only issue with it is  the wear and tear of it all. When these first came in to the shop, I picked it up and flicked it open and the thing nearly fell out of my hand. If you were to accidently pick it up by the front cover alone, you run the risk that the back starts to rip off. Maybe I'm just rough with my books... I just don't think this will survive in your bag like a usual book would. 

Now for some internal shots, I'm just going to put a few from Misery below. 

Praise the glory!

In case you didn't know.

Start of a chapter.

Example of typewriter text in the novel.

Buy all the flipbacks!

So there you have it, an entire flipback in five images. One thing I have to say straight of the bat, and I hope you noticed it to - the typeface. It's all sans-serif. Urgh. Now, earlier I said I liked it for the cover title, and that still stands. And if you've read my other posts, you'll know that I like sans-serif for kid's books. But not for an entire novel. And especially not for a tiny little format like this. I'm getting worked up just writing this! We discussed in class the main reason a serif font is used over sans-serif for narrative, and that's because there are more points of difference between characters. When you're writing something, your 'a's and 'd's can get mixed up, because generally the only thing showing the difference between this is the vertical line on a 'd'. But with serif, the a comes out like this one does, and you can easily tell that it's an a and not a d. Now the most frustrating thing is that the font I'm using right now, trebuchet, isn't a serif, but Times New Roman is. See the difference? I hope so. Anywho, I hate the flipback for using this. Especially with the typewriter text (second to last image). Doesn't that look shocking? Every 'n' looks like it's italicised, even though I don't think it's supposed to be. Gah. Just dislike on so many levels. Also, the typewriter sections are ragged right, while the rest is justified. Make up your mind people!
Another thing to note is the margin sizes. As a woman, I have hilariously manly thumbs, as a good friend told me when we were 13. Holding the book open on the side with one hand actually isn't that easy, and it definitely gets in my way when reading. I'm fairly certain that the left side is slightly larger, have a look in the 'about the author' picture above. But I'm right-handed anyway, so that's not helpful. 


That's my rant about flipbacks. I really just don't like them, I think the design is just a little crazy and although people went nuts for them when they first came out, the novelty has definitely worn off.


More to come,
K.

The Babysitters Club, part one.

Don't worry, this post isn't about the Babysitter's Club, that would just be terrible (I never actually read those books anyway...). I was babysitting for some friends on Saturday night, which was a very uneventful time - their daughters are stunning sleepers! As they are both literary people, they have a library I would be proud to call my own. And in the spirit of the design scrapbook, I waded through them and took photos of a few that caught my eye. Here's my favourite one.

Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts, Canongate, 2007.
Click on the images for a better view. 

Apparently the title is a play on 'Rorschach Tests', the inkblot tests. I didn't pick up on it, but Wikipedia told me, so it must be true. The novel takes place in our world with certain aspects that don't exist here, but do in their world, and are hidden by dedicated organisations. If that makes sense... It actually sounds like a really good book. However, I won't lie, the only reason I picked this book of the shelf was because it has review quotes on the spine - something I've never seen before. The main body text on the cover is in a typewriter-like typeface, with the title in a nice large typeface and the all caps helps it stand out. The blue, I feel, ties it back to the shark image (blue = ocean in my mind...) as well as standing out very well against the pale background. The blue is a continuing theme, as you'll see in a few pictures below. 
The quotes down the spine are rather interesting - the blue highlighting is around '...The Matrix, Jaws and The Da Vinci Code', which is what this book is apparently the bastard child of. Very intrigued, plus it made me read that section first and then move back up and read the rest of the quotes. Plus, like I've said, I've never seen this before. There are a whole heap more on the inside cover (see next picture), so maybe they're not necessary. This said, it's the thing that caught my eye and made me pick up the book, so it must work.
The image of the shark fin going through both the text on the front and the Canongate logo is great. If you stare at it for long enough it looks like it's actually moving. Also the blots of blood give the book an ominous, 'there's actually going to be a shark' kind of feel. Also, the blurb on the back is simply cut off and doesn't finish anywhere else. Weird, but I feel this may reflect the mysterious nature of the book - the main character wakes up and has no idea who he is or where he is. Intriguing.

First page. Apologies for my hand.

As you can see, the designer loves the blue. Which is lucky, 'cause it definitely catches the eye. Also, the reviews given here are just the long versions of the ones on the spine, which kind of takes away from the special-ness of the spine reviews. Sigh.  I'm not 100% happy with the white on blue for the reviews though. Although this blue is a repeat feature, the typeface isn't quite heavy enough for me to make me want to read it. Making it slightly heavier, I think, would make it more legible. Any who, the text on the first page is actually a copy of the text on the front cover, and unlike the review quotes, I really enjoy this repetition. Obviously you can't read the text fully on the cover as it's wrecked by the 'ripple' of the water the 'shark' is 'swimming' through, and it's nice to repeat it. I get frustrated if something I want to read or watch isn't repeated.

Front and back inside covers. Again, hand apologies.

Here's the front and back inside covers. I really love this, the back is just an upside down repeat of the front. They both start waaaay too high up, and finish with plenty of room at the bottom, or in the back's case, heaps at the top, not so much at the bottom. As it's a repeat, what I've said above about the front applies to the back too.


Now to the text itself. I like what's done, check out the pictures below.

Apologies for fingers and smallness - click for bigger version.
You'll know why they're so small soon...

Here are two section markers and the chapters that begin directly after them. Not sure if it's a coincidence, but the two quotes on these section markers are by Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami. Both of these authors are actually noted in two separate reviews on the inside covers, go on, look up! Maybe the review quotes were picked deliberately for this edition because of that? It seems awfully coincidental... Good work marketing team!
Anyway, to the design! The typeface used is a serif, for section headings, quotes and their authors, chapter headings and body text. I'm pretty happy with all of that. As a novel, a serif is generally considered to be the best choice. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this is due to it's easy-to-read nature. One thing I enjoy about the headings throughout is that there's no bolded text used - it's simply larger for the section numbers and chapter titles. As well as this, they have used italics in a nice and effective way for quotes and the chapter titles. This makes them stand out without throwing them in your face. Also, I'm a big fan of first line indents rather than full breaks between paragraphs, which is what is used in this book.


Now, you're going to see my favourite part of this book, and why the previous photos were so small. Apologies for the mass amount of pictures coming up, but here we go. Might be best to click on the first one and scroll through to the right before checking out what I have to say below.

So as you can tell by the nine photos I've put up that I think this is awesome. I've never seen this done before, and I haven't read the book but from the title I'm sure it's safe for us to assume that the shark (or something similar) is very key to the story. In the second to last picture, so can see the text is repeated and fades out, giving the impression of the narrator drowning (little depressing, I know). This sentence runs on to the next page and the story continues like it wasn't interrupted for 51 (!) pages. As you can tell, I just skimmed through the pages so you readers weren't bogged down with even more photos! This part of the book definitely leaves a lasting impression on me, and I think I might just ask to borrow it I'm time I'm over there.


This is it for this wonderful looking book, more books to come soon.