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After hearing Ariel Bissett, who is one of my absolute favourite booktubers, rave about All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan, I knew I had to read it. I ordered a copy almost immediately after hearing her review, but it took me a while to work my way through my pile of books to get to it.

“Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I’m thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough.”

That’s how All We Shall Know begins. That first confession sets up the premise and the tone of the rest of the novel. Melody Shee is pregnant. It is not her husband’s child. It is her Traveller student’s. This story is her confession and her penitence. She is blunt.

Ryan’s fourth novel is set in a claustrophobically small town in Ireland, where everyone knows everyone’s business and where Melody can’t escape the glares of her community. A failed attempt to revisit the father of her child leads to her finding a friend and a perfect foil in the form of Traveller Mary Crothery. From the moment they meet, their stories become intertwined tales of women ostracised by childless marriages.

Melody’s story is broken into the weeks of her pregnancy. As that biological clock drives the plot forward towards an inevitable end, Melody looks back and recounts how her marriage fell apart, how she betrayed her best school friend and her relationship with her mother.

She narrates how she perceives her failures as a wife, a friend and as a daughter. But she sees this new baby as a potential redemption, just as she sees her relationship with Mary as an opportunity to right the wrongs of her past. She never takes full accountability for her mistakes, but, instead, ruminates on them. She isn’t a victim but she never sees herself as a free actor. On one hand, for me, this made her a deeply unlikeable character. But on the other, this is one of the greatest qualities of Ryan’s writing. Melody is a flawed anti-hero of her own story, she’s human. Nowhere is that more visible than in the descriptions of her arguments with her husband Pat. Their relationship is caustic and abusive but seeing it through Melody’s eyes you can see how it came to that point, you can understand it.

All We Shall Know is the first book I’ve really raced through this year. One part of that is that it’s a compact little novel. But the other is that it’s a compulsive read. It’s short chapters, it’s sense of time counting down, Ryan’s bitterly angry language and its interspersed snippets of plot all come together to keep you turning the pages. However, I will say that this book didn’t blow my mind in the way I thought it would. I found the traveller plot a little ham-fisted and stereotyped and Melody’s sudden outbursts often incongruous and shoe-horned. Those factors didn’t detract from my enjoyment but I want these reviews to be honest. If you’ve read All We Shall Know, I’d love to know your thoughts and discuss them!

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ

  • How does knowing the novel has a set timeframe, the 9 months of a pregnancy, affect your reading experience?
  • Do you warm to Melody as a character, do you feel sympathy towards her? Why?
  • How does Ryan create the sense of a claustrophobic town where everyone knows your business?
  • What impact do the socio-economic and cultural differences of Melody and Mary have in your understanding of their relationship?
  • The novel is centred on women and their relationships as mothers, as friends, as wives what difference do you think it makes that these very female interactions are written by a man?

IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…

Why not use the All We Shall Know themed bookmark I designed to keep your place as you read? You can print and download it for free here.

As ever, let me know if you’ve read All We Shall Know, or if you have any recommendations for what I should be reading next.

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While you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, sometimes those covers are so lovely that they need just as much attention as the book inside. When I was little I really wanted to be a book cover designer (amongst a few other things) and I still kind of do, and I’ve been working on that urge as a part of my book club, where I review and redesign a book every month.

I love great book cover designs, and there have been so many that have stuck with me and inspired me through the years. So, I thought I would share some of my favourite book cover designs (I’m sticking mainly to novels here), and a little bit about why I like them. These are listed in no particular order, and there are so many I haven’t mentioned, but these are 25 covers I love.

 

Against Happiness, Eric G. Wilson

Designer: Jennifer Carrow

This cover is essentially just text on a blank background. But the choice to turn the text into a downwards curve, an upside-down smile, conveys the book’s subject matter more effectively than any other image could. That frown in contrast to the supposedly happy bright yellow cover not only catches the eye but draws it in to find out more.

 

Loneliness, John T. Cacioppo

Designer: Peter Medelsund

This is another simple typographic cover (I just love them okay). The dot of the i in Loneliness has drifted off. This subtle detail poses a puzzle for the viewer and beautifully illustrates the idea of loneliness.

 

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Designer: Elizabeth Perez

Whenever I think of clever cover designs, my first thought is always this experimental cover for Farenheit 451 by Elizabeth Perez, which beautifully capture’s the novels central image of the burning of books in a really impactful way.

 

1984, George Orwell

Designer: David Pearson

My second thought is always this updated version of 1984 by David Pearson. The idea of censoring the key information on a novel which focuses so much on the control of information is just genius. You can tell that the designer worked really hard to leave just enough of the author and title on the cover, through the use of embossing, whilst seeming to remove them from the page.

 

Middle C: A Novel, William H. Gass

Designer: Gabriele Wilson

This cover is as perfect a visual interpretation of the book’s title as you could imagine. A singular middle C, that apparently was quite tricky to get hold of, photographed on the most beautiful and slightly melancholic light teal background.

 

Resistance, Barry Lopez

Designer: Gabriele Wilson

Gabriele Wilson’s photographic cover for Resistance evokes a real feeling in the viewer. It’s not hard to imagine the taught resistance of all of those layered rubber bands. The earthy, almost sepia tones, always remind me of much older books and give what is quite a modern cover a grown up feel.

 

A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin

Designer: Justine Anweiler

This one is clever, beautiful and so so well made. I love that they actually made the clothes label, the commitment to the concept is what sells this cover in my opinion. It also doesn’t hurt that the idea of seeing inside the striking blue uniform is a lovely play on the novel’s look inside the lives of the women who wear those uniforms.

 

The Reef, Iain McCalman

Designer: Oliver Munday

I’m not entirely sure why I like this one. I think it’s just how well it is balanced and the way that it updates vintage botanical illustrations in a really aesthetically pleasing way.

 

Canadian Water Politics, Mark Sproule-Jone, Carolyn Johns & B. Timothy Heinmiller

Designer: David Drummond

I’m a sucker for simple well placed sans serif text on image covers, as you will know if you read my book club on The Shepherd’s Life which has the most stunning cover. Everything about this cover is so well placed and considered despite each element being very unassuming on its own. The composition of this cover really elevates an academic text on what might not immediately seem like the most interesting topic to something special.

 

Flappers and Philosophers, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Designer: Coralie Bickford-Smith

I love the entirety of Coralie Bickford-Smith’s F.Scott Fitzgerald series, the gold foiled art-deco patterns not only capture the spirit of the age in which Fitzgerald was writing, they’re also elegant enough that you can picture them sitting on his shelves. I picked Flappers and Philosophers simply because I love the pattern and I thought it might break up the high number of white/light covers I’ve picked for this list.

 

The Hobbit, J.R. Tolkien

Designer:  Adam Busby

Adam Busby’s cover for The Hobbit sadly isn’t real. Despite it’s being a mock cover, I absolutely love its design. The flat map design is at once a nod to The Hobbit’s past and a move to bring it up to date with the present. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine a character in a Wes Anderson movie pulling this version of The Hobbit out of their neatly packed suitcase.

 

The Waves, Virginia Woolf

Designer: Aino-Maija Metsola

Aino-Maija Metsola designed a series of these abstract covers of Virginia Woolf’s novels. The choice to go abstract really fits with Woolf’s modernist style which often relies on fragments and feelings to convey its messages in the same way these covers do. All of them are equally lovely so I chose The Waves, because it’s my favourite Woolf.

 

Juneteenth, Ralph Ellison

Designer: Barbara De Wilde

This jazz inspired cover is part of a whole series of Ellison’s works reimagined by Barbara De Wilde. What really struck me about these covers is how fun they are and how they really capture something of Ellison’s energy. I also love that when they’re stood together the colour blocks on the spines of the books come together to create a similar irregular, jazzy pattern.

 

The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling

Designer: Tatiana Boyko

Tatiana Boyko’s use of primary colours and simple leaf shapes reflects what an important, foundational work of children’s literature The Jungle Book is. But it also makes the cover feel modern due to its minimal style and centrally placed block sans serif title.

 

Seven Brief Lessons in Physics, Carlo Rovelli

Designer: Coralie-Bickford Smith

This one is just stunning, I mean look at it!

 

The Way Through Doors, Jesse Ball

Designer: Jason Booher and Helen Yentus

The cover for The Way Through Doors is potentially one of my favourite papercut covers ever, even though its paper element is so simple. The way that the title is divided on either side of the cut to literally allow you to see the way through it is so clever and really well done, this could easily have been a cover that was much too hard to read to be effective. For me what really makes this cover though is the fact you can see it’s real paper in its colour and texture. The little touch of the sideways extra text is so lovely as well.

 

Dry, Augusten Burroughs

Designer: Chip Kidd

There’s a reason Chip Kidd is thought of as one the masters of book cover design. The visual irony of this cover reflects perfectly the idea of an alcoholic in denial which features prominently in Dry. It’s seemingly simple cover but so effective.

 

The Woman Who Read Too Much, Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

Designer: Anne Jordan

There is something fleeting about Anne Jordan’s use of light to create this cover. I love how the text spreads between the two pages whose division feels almost sculptural.

 

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

Designer: Cleon Peterson

Cleon Peterson’s illustrations for Philip Dick’s The Man in the High Castle are so visceral and convey a sense of pace and drama about the novel. The figures on the cover almost don’t look human as they attack each other with knives. The entire composition appears to be set on a diagonal driving the action forward and setting the scene for some precarious tension in the novel.

 

The Lesser Bohemians, Eimear McBride

Designer: Oliver Munday

Oliver Munday features in this list 3 times with good reason, he makes stunning work and this cover for Eimear McBride’s The Lesser Bohemians. His fragmentation of the portrait leaves just enough of the woman’s face there to be identifiable whilst interspersing it with text and fragments of a floral painting, which come together to produce a cover I would not be opposed to have hanging on my wall as a work of art.

 

The Bed Moved, Rebecca Schiff

Designer: Janet Hansen

Yes, it’s another typographic cover. I love how fun this one from Janet Hansen is though, with its scattered letters reflecting the book’s title. The way the non-scrambled text is still placed on angles and slotted between the big pink text means that it doesn’t detract from the design or spoil the fun. I’m also always a sucker for a bit of pink.

 

The Solitudes, Luis De Gongora

Designer: Eric White

The way the hand type comes vertically through the centre of this cover is just magical. The muted blue grey tones of the background scenery give it a sense of atmosphere, and make the white text seem even bolder. Also, can we talk about how perfect the placement of the Penguin logo is on this cover please?

 

Men in Space, Tom McCarthy

Designer: John Gall

The way that the figure in this photographic cover is hovering in the air is marked out perfectly against the pale urban setting in his black hat and jumper, the focus is always on this man caught in the space. The choice to have the text edge just slightly off the page expands the space beyond the physical bounds of the page without ever distracting from the singular focus of the figure. I think it’s also worth noting that John Gall designed a series of these covers, each a little different, so it would work digitally as well, which I think is going to be more and more important in the coming years.

 

Word by Word, Kory Stamper

Designer: Oliver Munday

There are a few covers knocking around like this, a title peeking out from columns of text. But what marks this one out is Oliver Munday’s use of colour and handwritten text, the mix of unexpected textures and tones in a familiar setting makes Word by Word’s cover that little bit special.

 

Things We Didn’t See Coming, Steven Amsterdam

Designer: Peter Medelsund

The concept, the use of colour, the justification of the text, everything about this cover is absolutely genius. But I would expect nothing less from Peter Medelsund.

 

If you want to keep up with all of the covers I’m loving I’ve created a pinterest board just for that! It’s currently got over 100 pins and is growing.

What are your favourite book cover designs? Which books have you judged (rightly or wrongly) by their covers?

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This is the final instalment of my podcast posters series, for now at least. As the last one included 2 posters, this week I thought I would push myself and go for 3. These are 3 very different podcasts, but they’re 3 I couldn’t finish this series without designing for.

My Dad Wrote a Porno

After getting on the My Dad Wrote a Porno train a bit late, I made pretty much everyone I know get on with me. Simply put it is hilarious, like cry and pee you pants hilarious. It’s exactly what it says on the tin, Jamie Morton’s dad (‘Rocky Flintstone’) wrote a porno called Belinda Blinked and now he’s reading it for all of the internet to hear. What really makes the rib-aching laughs is the commentary offered by James Cooper and Alice Lavine. They’ve already made 2 incredibly popular series and a book, so there’s plenty to binge on if you haven’t begun your porno journey. If like me, you’ve already listened to every episode at least twice, they’ve promised series 3 will be coming very soon!  Originally my design for this podcast was going to be a bit more subtle and revolve around playing with negative space. But My Dad Wrote a Porno isn’t really about subtlety, so instead I thought I would illustrate one of my favourite, boob-based, lines from the Belinda Blinked books so far.

 

This American Life

There is no way I could do this series without including This American Life, THE podcast for podcasters. There’s so much I could write, and already have written about my love for This American Life, so I won’t go on too much here. But just in case you’ve been living under a rock (a mountain-sized rock) and haven’t heard of it yet, every episode of This American Life is based around a theme and features a series, or sometimes just one story, on that theme. They feature some of the best radio journalism out there, the occasional bit of comedy or fiction, and they were responsible for the smash hit spin-off podcast Serial. For this last poster, I felt like I needed to capture something of the importance and stature of This American Life in the podcasting community, and translate it into design.

 

Ctrl Alt Delete

I can’t believe I’ve only recently started listening to the wonder that is Emma Gannon’s podcast Ctrl Alt Delete. Crtl Alt Delete features all around girl boss Emma Gannon interviewing pretty much all of your favourite people from the internet (and the rest of the world) about how social media and the internet has changed their lives. The interviews are as insightful and entertaining as her book of the same name. Each episode is jam-packed with wisdom from people who are really killing it, and plenty of “I can’t believe they do that too” moments. I wanted this poster to be about the way that the internet and technology has changed the way we see the world, not in the way that traditional media complains about “bad narcissistic anti-social millennials” but in a way that has changed the world and brought so many people and ideas together.

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QWERTY Design history

The tale of the QWERTY keyboard is one that has been surrounded by myth and legend. It has always seemed strange to me that an object we all use literally every day can have such a clouded history, so after seeing a few new papers on the topic of QWERTY’s history I thought I’d spend a bit of time investigating how QWERTY came to be the only keyboard we really use today.

For many years, the story of why the letters on a keyboard are arranged the way they are would be answered with “to stop typists going to fast”. It was believed that Christopher Scholes developed the QWERTY system in 1868 to stop typewriters jamming. When typists went too fast keys that were close to one another would catch on each other and the machine would break. So, it was said that Scholes moved commonly used letters away from each other to slow down their typing and to stop the jamming problem. Common pairings like T and H, and E and R, then should be set as far apart from each other as possible. But they’re not. T and H are diagonally adjacent, and E and R are right next to each other.

So, if Scholes wasn’t trying to slow typists down why did he arrange the letters in the way that he did? According to Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka, it was all about telegraphs. In their paper on QWERTY’s design history, they posit that Scholes’ QWERTY typewriter was derived from the Hughes-Phelps Printing Telegraph, and was developed for Morse receivers, with the arrangement of letters being easy for Morse code readers and senders to use. However, QWERTY might not have been the ideal system for telegraph operators, or indeed typists. The system reigned supreme not because of its innate efficiency but because of a compromise between inventors and producers, and to escape patent infringements. There are also some people who believe that the QWERTY arrangement was a tactic to sell more typewriters, as it allowed a salesman to handily, and impressively, type out the product’s name “typewriter” because all the letters were placed in one row. Whichever story you believe, there is little doubt that QWERTY’s design story has been a messy one at best.

But after a chaotic creation, QWERTY has stuck. I remember the sense of delight the first time I had a phone with a QWERTY keyboard because it was familiar and so much easier to type on. QWERTY’s persistence has been, in part, orchestrated by E. Remington & Sons the firearms manufacturing company who bought and marketed the Scholes and Glidden typewriter in 1873. As well as selling typewriters, they also sold courses for typists on touch typing. This meant that when companies hired typists, they had to buy Remington’s QWERTY typewriters as well to ensure that they got the most out of their employees. This sales tactic began a long history of people learning to use QWERTY and then being tied to it due to familiarity.

This development, where design is constantly tied to a previous innovation because people become stuck in their ways, is called ‘path dependency’. QWERTY is now fundamental to how people in the US, UK and Japan work. It is used on laptops, tablets and phones even though there is no design reason, other than it’s what people are used to. I doubt many people are using their iPhone’s QWERTY keyboard to tap out morse code.

Despite the prevailing power of QWERTY designers are still trying to improve on Scholes’ layout.  Particularly interesting alternatives include Dvorak, MALTRON, and KALQ. Dvorak is probably QWERTY’s oldest major challenger. Its design is technically more efficient, with studies showing that 70% of strokes on a Dvorak keyboard occur in the home row (the one your fingers hover over) compared to 32% in the QWERTY keyboard. The Dvorak keyboard also accounts for the fact that the majority of people are right-handed, placing more frequently used keys on the right-hand side. When you first see a MALTRON keyboard you would be forgiven for thinking it might control a space ship. The letter keys are divided into two halves with the numbers together between them, and 2 sets of 2 keys set diagonally underneath the letter panels. But if you hold your hands over the design you can see how well it reflects how our fingers and thumbs are naturally positioned. KALQ has been specially designed for typing with your thumbs on a tablet or phone. The keys are divided into two halves which makes a lot of sense.

Whether or not one of these alternative keyboards, or some more innovative none key based system, will prevail is yet to be decided. I don’t know what kind of shift would be needed to tear our hands away from the familiar pattern of QWERTY now so many generations have learnt to type, to code, to work using it. Perhaps it will take a generation being given something different, for their muscle memory to respond to something new, for their frustration to come out as something that doesn’t look like asjkl.

NB: This post was written on a QWERTY keyboard.

Now we’re a little ways into this series, is there anything else you’d like to be featured in a design story post? Previous design stories include Dr Martens, the Swiss Railway clock and Mondaine watches, the Kanken backpack, and the London Underground font.

 

Key Sources:

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Handwritten letters are something really special. I’ve written at least one letter a week for the last 3 years and it’s not a habit I can see myself giving up anytime soon. Not only is it a lovely thing to do and share with someone you love, I genuinely believe that taking the time out to create a handwritten letter is good for you.

Here are 12 reasons I think we should all we writing more letters.

THEY’RE A LOVELY SURPRISE

Who doesn’t love receiving mail? Knowing that someone you loved has thought of you in the form of a little envelope (or a big envelope) on your doorstep is just the best feeling.

YOU CAN SAY THE THINGS THAT MATTER

Quite often when we send an email or a text we’re responding to something or asking for something. When you write a letter, you can just write the things that matter more proactively (I guess you could do that in an email, but you’re more likely to in a letter). The idea that you’re writing for the sake of writing, for sharing something special is what makes letters that little bit magical.

THEY MEAN MORE

There’s no getting away from the fact that sometimes letters just mean more. There’s something wonderful about holding a piece of paper that you know someone else was holding and thinking of you. Handwriting can convey so much more than a typed letter, you can see emotion and speed in letters. Handwritten letters are just so personal, that’s why they’re so loved.

THEY LAST

Physical letters feel more permanent than their electronic counterparts. There’s just something them. Because they’re more likely to be cherished (I’ve kept every letter, and meaningful post it, I’ve ever received) they’re also more likely to stick around. Just think how great it’s going to be for you, or your friends, or your great great grandkids, or even your future biographer to get to go through them in however many years.

BE A PART OF TRADITION

Letters of Note is one of my favourite books I own. It is a testament to the enduring tradition of letters, a tradition which I am so happy to kind of be a part of.

THEY MAKE YOU HAPPIER

Writing letters to people you love is good for your mental health, and that’s not just me talking it’s science. At the University of Kent, Steve Toepfer tested the benefits of writing genuine letters of gratitude and found that the “more letter writing people did, the more they improved significantly on happiness and life satisfaction.”

IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

Writing out what happened in your week, or how you were feeling about someone or something at a particular time helps it become a lasting memory. According to Dr Helen Macpherson of Deakin University “hand writing forces you to organise your thoughts that leads to deeper processing” which means that you remember what you’re writing down. So, write letters to your friends about the good times and the things you love and they’ll stay with you much longer.

IMPROVE YOUR WRITING

While you can just go stream of consciousness, if you want your recipient to get the most out of your letter you have to think about what you’re writing. Practising structuring your thoughts and getting it right the first time (it’s much harder to cut and paste on paper) really does help you become a better writer. I think if you put my letters from 3 years ago, next to the one from 3 days ago, you would definitely see a difference, even if my punctuation still sucks. Plus, you worked all those years through school to perfect your cursive, don’t let it get rusty and go to waste!

GET CREATIVE

Writing a letter doesn’t have to be all about the words, it can be a great excuse to get creative. That can mean anything from including some paper ephemera from the stories you’re writing about, to including a physical photo, to illustrating your letters and envelopes. In terms of creative letter inspiration, you could do a lot worse than scrolling through Lucy Halcomb’s Instagram.

TAKE TIME TO UNPLUG

When you hand write a letter, you have to give it your focus for however long it takes you to write out what you want to say. That’s time spent not looking at a screen, but making something and thinking. In an age where we’re increasingly looking to unplug and try out digital detoxes, writing a letter is the perfect excuse to step away from the blue light.

IT’S AN EXCUSE TO BUY/USE YOUR NICE STATIONERY

Now I never really need an excuse to buy more stationery, but I never say no to having one. Some good places to start your hunt include: Paperchase, Papier, and Rifle Paper. I love my super simple but pink (!) paper and envelopes from Crown Mill too. If you want to resist the urge to expand your collection of paper and envelopes (I have so much respect for you) letter writing is the perfect time to use up the random bits you have lying around. Got a couple of sheets of coloured paper just hanging around, use it! Got some off cuts of wrapping sheet that aren’t big enough for a gift, make them into a fun envelope! Got a wealth of stickers you’ve only ever used 2 of, decorate the poop out of that letter!

EASIER THAN YOU THINK

All you really need is a pen, some paper, an envelope and a stamp. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. You don’t have to write the next Great American novel. It doesn’t even have to take that long. You just need to write something honest, something thoughtful or even something funny, seal it up and send it.

Are you a snail mail lover? Why do you love letters?