271: Hammett on Iskry
April 8, 2019
Here are a couple great Dashiell Hammett novellas published in Poland by Iskry in 1987 and ’88. Although the cover designs (by Wiesław Rosocha) are not as accomplished as many…
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Judging Books by Their Covers
Judging Books by Their Covers is Josh MacPhee's ongoing series of writings and image collections of book covers. Although sometimes they feel marginal today, books have been a primary form of information and cultural exchange for almost 400 years. Book covers are often a person's first contact with the ideas inside, and in the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, cover designs are even more likely to shape the opinions of those that pick them up since many of us are too busy to ever read the entirety of the books. Judging Books by Their Covers largely focuses on—but is not exclusive to—the book covers and design coming out of the Left.
Josh is always looking for more book covers to feature. If you've got some gems he missed, or have ideas, drop him an email at josh (at) justseeds.org 
270: English Everywhere
April 1, 2019
A quick book blog this week. I found this book on the street a couple months back, and am pretty impressed with the 1970s whole book design, channeling high modernist…
269: Commie Round-Up
February 25, 2019
This week I thought I would just round up some of the cooler communist covers I’ve amassed over the past handful of years. It’s a nice collection, with material from…
268: Democracy vs. Communism
February 18, 2019
About a month ago I came across a clutch of these great old anti-communist pamphlets at Book Thug Nation. Touted as the “Democracy versus Communism Series,” they are an amazing…
267: Penguin Science Fiction
February 11, 2019
I’ve been on hiatus from this book blog for about six months, but I’m going to try to start posting new entries again, although time will likely only allow one…
266: The New Soldier
August 13, 2018
I was surprised to stumble on this really nicely designed book by and about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, published in 1971 by Collier, a major publishing house. It’s…
265: Health and Safety in Printmaking
July 23, 2018
I found this amazing Canadian manual for printmaker safety earlier this year. The design is by Karen Patkau, and wonderfully captures the kind of overlap I find so visually enjoyable…
264: African Writers Series in Lapham’s Quarterly
July 18, 2018
I excited that I’ve just had a piece I wrote on the social and design histories of Heinemann’s African Writers Series published on the Lapham’s Quarterly website. I’m planning on…
263: Big Red Diary 1974
July 16, 2018
From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, young radicals in the U.S. really only had one choice for a day planner, the Slingshot Organizer. I always had a love/hate relationship…
262: Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles
July 9, 2018
I’ve long been a fan of German photomontagist John Heartfield. His political montage work for publications like AIZ is often reproduced, and has been collected in a number of editions,…
261: A Soviet Journey
July 2, 2018
I picked up this book in Portland, OR a couple years back. I’ve been an Alex La Guma fan since reading his slow-burning yet mesmerizing anti-apartheid struggle novel, In the…
260: No Pasaran!
June 25, 2018
I picked up this book while browsing Mother Foucault’s Bookshop in Portland, OR with Alec and Katie a couple years back. It was a little pricey for something I’ll never…
259: John Reed’s Mexiko in Aufruhr
June 18, 2018
In order to not wait months between posts, I’m going to just share some individual books I’ve picked up over the last couple years that are extraordinary in some way….
258: Leonard Baskin (compiled)
June 4, 2018
Three of the most significant social realist printmakers working in the US in the second half of the 20th Century were Leonard Baskin, Antonio Frasconi, and Ben Shahn. While all…
257: Dover Science and Math
May 21, 2018
While there is a fair amount of literature out there on the “paperback revolution” and the sea change in publications created by the Pocket Books imprint in the US (founded…
257.5: Book Table at Moon Palace Books
April 9, 2018
I recently was invited by the rad Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis to decorate one of the tables they’ve set up in their new cafe and restaurant over-looking the bookstore….
257: Penguin Crime
March 12, 2018
There are a couple really sweet spots (for me) where book cover design starts to feel sublime, and one of these is the “Green Period” of the Penguin crime series…
256.5: Ursula, Rest in Power!
February 1, 2018
For those that haven’t heard, Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most important Anglophone authors of the 20th century, passed away on January 22, 2018. I (and many here…
256: Little New World (compiled)
January 22, 2018
From the early 20th century through the early 1960s, one of the largest Left organizations in the US (if not the largest) was the Communist Party USA. The propaganda wing…
255: Tamil Communism
January 15, 2018
I’ve been sitting on these dozen covers for almost six years now. Back in 2012 my friend Jesse sent these scans from a visit to India, and it…
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