CHEEKY SPANKING STORIES and 5 More Favorite Covers of 2012
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (The Dial Press) I love that this takes the classic silhouette image and incorporates it with other important images from the book. I may get this as a tattoo. You heard it here first: Bear, silhouette, teapot is the new rock, paper, scissors.
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg (Grand Central Publishing) A crinkled fast food wrapper for a book about an obese woman and her relationship with her family and her relationship with food. Perfect! It screams American overabundance.
Paris I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down by Rosecrans Baldwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) This is so sexy and sparse, plus I heart the clever little symbols. This is like a tweet or a Facebook status update rendered in gorgeous font.
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig (Angry Robot) There is so much going on here: It’s a woman, made out of birds. But not just birds. There’s numbers and skulls and road signs and a screaming mouth on her neck, and more. Brain-meltingly awesome. I would get a tattoo of this one, too, but my tattoo artist would probably join the witness protection program to avoid having to ink it.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) FSG really knocked it out of the park with covers this year (My Heart Is an Idiot by Davy Rothbart is a runner-up for my list.) This one is cute, with the little yellow books – but wait, there’s more. IT GLOWS IN THE DARK. I knew this going into it, but I can’t imagine how many people don’t know when they buy it. They must freak out when they turn the lights off at night: “AHHHHHH ALIENS IN THE BEDROOM!” So hilarious.
Cheeky Spanking Stories edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Cleis Press) I really like this one, too. For reasons.
