Consolation
February 19, 2008

When I first saw this cover (sent to me by Nate) my initial read was about the juxtaposition of two elements, a seemingly modern image and a classic looking picture frame. My second visual read was similar to the first, the juxtaposition of the modern type with the classic.

The author also writes in a somewhat poetic form, I think that this visual presentation carries that poetic sense.

Interesting enough, this book is about two different stories in two different settings, but creatively intertwined into one story. One side of the story is about a modern widow who's deceased husband was believed to have found the location of the first and oldest images take of Toronto. The other story is about the photographer who took those pictures.

This book was actually inspired by the below true story:

In 1867, the city council of New Orleans commissioned the photographer Theodore Lilienthal to make a great portfolio of the city that could be dispatched to the Paris World Exposition, promoting a region still badly beleaguered by the Civil War. Lost for a century, the pictures were rediscovered only in 1994. The power of their weird modernity has only increased in the year and a half since Hurricane Katrina.

Let me know if anyone knows the designer.

Below are some other cover designs for this title, the first is the paperback and I believe that the second is another hardcover design.

Tags:  book cover, book jacket