Some of the Best Book Collections

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Books are renowned for their aesthetic abilities, so here are some of my favourite collections of authors’ works or series.

Kazuo Ishiguro — Modern F&F

Faber & Faber’s minimalist approach to their modern reprints of Ishiguro’s work are amongst some of my favourite designs for a book cover, ever. Speaking of covers only: A Pale View of Hills, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and Nocturnes are my personal favourites — but, truthfully, I enjoy all the designs,

Haruki Murakami — Modern Vintage

Similar to what F&F opted to do with Ishiguro’s works, Vintage revamped almost all of Murakami’s releases to boast a minimalist style. Their signature trait is that they typically only contain three or four colours (typically red, white, black, and cream), alongside featuring a centred, circular design.

Mieko Kawakami — Picador Trilogy

Whilst the Europa editions of Kawakami’s work are abstract and beautiful, something about the raw boldness and colour of Picador’s versions speaks to me. Heaven, which is a short novel I fell in love with, was purchased solely on the fact that I liked the bold yellow cover and ambiguous expressions of the models in the photograph. Because of that, I owe Picador for helping me find one of my favourite authors.

Ali Smith — Seasonal Penguin

In line with Smith’s quartet of seasonally-named books, Penguin gave each a pleasantly detailed and aesthetic cover. As of now, I only own Autumn (book no. 1), but I hope to obtain the entire series before I begin to read them. I would be lying if I said the novel doesn’t entice me enough just with how colourful and warm its cover is.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi — ‘Before’ HarperCollins

Whilst I have yet to read any of Kawaguchi’s books, the consistent and semi-minimalist style of his ‘Before’ series of work (published by HarperCollins) has caught the eyes of many. Before the Coffee Gets Cold was a book I frequently saw discussion about across the last year or so, and it seems the author was able to make a nice collection based on similar premises. But, since I have yet to read any, that’s guess work from me.

Rachel Cusk — Faber & Picador

Both F&F and Picador offer very similar covers for Cusk’s respective works, perhaps at the author’s request? Whilst I have never read any of Cusk’s work thus far, she is still on my radar and I enjoy how all the novels look when lined up (even if they are not entirely consistent). Coventry is certainly my favourite design.

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