Haut or Not: A couplet
Alicia Gifford
Folks, here’s sneak (albeit pixelated) look at what the fiction editor of Night Train reads. Tempted as I was to ask her to resend a higher resolution pic, I thought about the ‘visual vocabulary of spines,’ how we’ve come to recognize a book by its design — how the spine often acts as an abbreviated version of the cover, in terms of color, fonts, etc. The title’s legibility is often not as important as the spine’s thematic composition. Yes, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge how sauve the publisher is; and the publisher hires the editor that judges the book — so in the end it’s related. Matthew Simmons, who works at a bookstore, has a knack for pointing out books. So, what do you see?
