Painted Veils

on judging books by their covers

You can’t judge a book by its cover anymore since almost all modern covers are terrible. This is one part of the epidemic of “art” being made by the aesthetically impaired. Photoshop in the wrong hands is a travesty. Maybe I’m being too harsh. If I didn’t know what book covers used to be like, maybe I’d think what’s being made now was just fine.

It’s just that as much as we’re taught the adage not to judge a book by it’s cover, we do. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not about superficial good looks, flashy make-up, fancy clothes or plastic surgery, it’s about the soul of the piece or the person that shines through in the grace, depth, or simplicity of the casing that carries it. Great literature is being demeaned either by stock photos, amateur graphic design graduates, out of touch office squares, or publishers making a cash grab with new editions boasting “now a major motion picture” with their movie poster covers. As though Jane Austen needs Kiera Knightley to validate her work.

like I said, a travesty

Physical books are my favorite thing in the world. They are as loved & important to me as music. And yet, I am often turned off when I enter a bookstore, the displays flush with shiny new covers. It’s rare that a new book cover intrigues, magics or invites me into its world. I don’t feel elevated by the experience. And the pleasure of holding a book that you can be proud of is something I haven’t had in some time. If it can’t be artful enough to draw me in, let it be blank and plain so that my own imagination colors the world inside.

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All that said, I wanted to share some stand out books I’ve read in the past year or so - despite the covers of many.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham ∞ The hostage situation at an airport makes me toss all snobbishness to the side. An airport Hudson’s bookstore is the natural spring in a desert of plastic water bottles. I often buy a book in spite of my aforementioned strictures. This one jumped out because of the easy bait of a rare fawning quote from Ernest Hemingway blazing across the front, “written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer…[Markham] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers…it really is a bloody wonderful book.” I took the bait & am so glad I did. Hemingway was right. It is a masterfully written account by Beryl of her extraordinary life growing up in turn of the 20th century Africa. She’s famous for being the first woman to cross the Atlantic ocean from England to North America, but the book is about so much more than that. She has a wry, incisive perspective on the world & people around her. I love her because she is so unlike me - fearless, adventurous - and while I may not become a racehorse trainer or aviator or run barefoot on the African plains, I can summon her spirit & stand inspired by the effortlessness of her pen. (side note: I had an intuition not to read the introduction before I read the book & upon skimming it after I finished I’m so glad I didn’t read it. I actually ripped out the whole intro before passing it along to a friend. I could write another entire essay on the phenomenon of introductions added to new editions as they almost always explain away all the mystery and beauty.)

The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham ∞ The story of bored Kitty Garstin who marries for security but winds up in 1920s China with her dull bacteriologist husband who drags her to the cholera-ravaged wilds for spite is overlayed indelibly with my own experience of traversing Italy, Switzerland & France by train last fall. The burnt rubber smells, the perfumed passengers, the foil-wrapped lunches & click-clack sway are part of the book and make it stand more vividly in my mind. I hope that in traveling I, like Kitty, will outgrow the self-absorbed malaise that seems to afflict us both.

The Third Realm by Karl Ove Knausgard ∞ Guy read this on tour first & I picked it up only because I had nothing better to read. I have never been able to read Knausgard before - to muster the strength to care about what to me are the inanities of the inner workings of his mind. But this book is about a handful of different characters, each chapter told from their distinct perspective and all happening simultaneously as a bright star appears in the sky & supernatural events occur. It’s about the devil, Norwegian black metal, & immortality. Only after we both read it we learned it is the 3rd book in a series, but that doesn’t seem to matter as all three books occur at the same moment in time. The moment the Star appears. Mysterious & spooky & further evidence as to why I don’t need to engage with death metal music.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell ∞ Hamnet is trending right now for good reason. It’s a fictional account of Shakespeare’s family life & how it informed his work. The intimacy of the writing did something to me. It took me on the real journey of heartbreak. In it, I walked through the stages of grief & successfully ended on hope. The writing is understated & yet what happens is alchemical magic.

The Individual & The Nature of Mass Events by Jane Roberts ∞ This is a piece of channeled material. An entity who named himself Seth began speaking through a woman, Jane Roberts, in the 1960s. For years, Jane channeled Seth and her partner, Robert, transcribed all their conversations. All the Seth books are special to me, but this one in particular I revisit whenever the world feels insane. The primary message in all Seth material is that you create your own reality, and this one takes that truth onto the world scale. Instead of being passive victims of the times, we are all creating what’s happening in the world through our cumulative, largely subconscious, beliefs and emotions. True or not, it’s a reminder of how important it is for the individual to clean the clutter of negativity and violence and dis-ease within himself so as not to pollute the whole.

The Bear & The Nightingale by Katherine Arden ∞ My favorite genre is fantasy fiction so you can imagine how hard it is to find a good book to read. In my experience, 90% of novels in this category are trash. Even if the story is compelling, I have to cringe & bear the dialogue. That said, I can go pretty lowbrow & have several favorites that would fall into that category (A Court of Roses & Thorns, Throne of Glass, The Fourth Wing, for example) But this book was a rare example of a fantasy that did not embarrass. Maybe it’s because it’s based on Russian folklore and the Slavic tradition is anathema to uncoolness. If you like classic archetypal stories of good vs. evil, fairy realms, & the clash of Christianity & paganism, this is the perfect wintertime series to escape into.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery ∞ I read this over the summer while I was living in a little one room shed on my family farm in Virginia. It acted as balm to my summertime blue. The soul of Anne is so strong. Her innocence, optimism & indefatigable spirit ring right off the page and resonate you into joy. She calls forth the child inside & I plan on re-reading it every time I need to be called out of my adult dreariness. (Some of the new edition book covers are truly despicable. They degrade the profound message & poignant writing of this book by jacketing it in hideous, infantilizing illustrations, insulting both child & adult reader alike.)

Adventures Among Birds by W.H. Hudson ∞ This came to me in the mail - a gift from a musician in England. He sent an early edition so I had that rare, beautiful experience of elevation every time I opened it. And the book itself was the most surprising, joyous thing to read. It’s a collection of quite personal nature writings about birds in England. It’s not dry at all, but contains the wry humor of an Englishman who advocates for the appreciation of the natural world by living and observing in it over scientific dissection of specimens in labs, museums or otherwise anti-nature spaces. I didn’t know how much I really do love birds until I read this.

The elegance of first editions

VERSUS

computer generated nightmares

I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these, what you think and mostly if you have any other great book recommendations - good cover or not.

& obviously I love a good bookstore. While in Los Angeles I have two favorite local shops - Reverie Bookstand (used) & Stories Books & Cafe (some used, some new) in Echo Park.

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