Following the Thread - Great Book Design

Thank you for this in particular:

"This cover playfully asks one to step behind the scenes of art, to see what happens on the back side, to imagine the labor and planning and unseen underpinnings that make a beautiful thing come together."

I love that you do a reading of the cover, beyond simply relishing its beauty and aptness. I bet the designer is mentally bowing down before you for getting it. I'm inspired to look at nineteenth-century book design more closely. What did they know that we have forgotten?

Your article brought back memories of evenings snuggled between my son and daughter who called me the peanut butter in their sandwich while I read them the books that always elicited late night pleas, "Please, Mom, just one more chapter."
Our books were usually from the library or Scholastic editions bought for less than ten dollar from school book sales. Still, they were treasures. Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince in an oversized paperback with exquisite illustrations, the sparser Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken which allowed them to embroider all the absent images with their own imaginations, and Claude the Dog, a perennial Christmas favorite that they still read to their own children today. That it's still available 20 years after our initial, purchase testifies to its value.
Beautifully rendered publications are lovely, and I do admire them. But the gift of reading we pass on to our children is the gift of sparking imaginations and helping them to discover all the worlds contained between the covers of books in spite of the embellishment that adorns the cover.

Wonderful article. I have a beautiful hardback of Little Women my mother gave me almost 40 years ago. Now I can add this, as well as the other threads books. Poppy is right about the novel!