Jordan Crane's amazing cover for Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends

The amazing illustrator Jordan Crane has produced a beautiful cover for Michael Chabon's forthcoming book Maps and Legends. It's pure Crane, that dreamlike, old-timey (but still sharp-edged) style that makes books like The Clouds Above so memorable. The treatment is really elaborate and luscious, an object lesson in making the physical book into a piece of genuine desiderata, an artifact you want to own as well as read.

The black cloth (or paper that resembles it) wraps around the hardcover jacket with debossing and foil. Then there are three bellybands with Jordan Crane’s illustrations (has anyone seen a book with three different belly bands?).

Link, Link to Maps and Legends (via Making Light)

• [joanna]

  Well, if your aim is to ruin the second-hand market for your book, this is a great way to do it!

• [heydemann3]

  As a bookbinder, there’s just one word for this- YUM.
  I can see where it’s going to be hard on retailers nad laibraries, tough. Perhaps a plainer version for the rough-trade?

• [Takuan]

  It just needs a clear, slide-on hard case

• [eliterrell]

  I think Thames: Sacred River had at least 2, plus a full length jacket. I can’t find any pictures online, but the outer bands had a sort of Medieval watercolor and underneath was a tunnel going under the river from the Victorian era. I thought it looked pretty neat at the time.

• [ReMaines]

  Ah, it’s shrink-wrapped–that makes sense. (Mentally calculating that into manufacturing cost because I am such a publishing geek. Yup, still makes sense.)

• [death_worm]

  I was amazed when I saw this cover at the bookstore. I almost wanted to buy the book just for its cover (and I’m one who usually throws away dust covers!)

• [bbreader]

  Looks a whole lot better than a Kindle!

  #8, #9, #11,

  Spend the 50 cents on a mylar dj cover and enjoy w/o worry.

• [Samurai Gratz]

  Not so “forthcoming” – I discovered this gem in Asheville’s Malaprop’s Books and Cafe this past Wednesday and snapped it up. It’s absolutely gorgeous–and the essays and stories withing ain’t too shabby either.

• [futureobsolete]

  I heart Jordan Crane’s work all the more now that I see that, like me, he played TSR boardgames in the 80s. Maybe it’s just me but it seems like his bellyband design is a lovely monochromatic shoutout to Fantasy Forest.

  http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic25348_lg.jpg

• [PukeBazooka]

  Wow, that’s really cool. I saw this book in the McSweeney’s store yesterday but hadn’t realized how neat the cover is — the picture didn’t really do it justice.

  For those that are interested, an excerpt from Michael Chabon’s proposed script for Spider-Man 2 is currently on the front page of McSweeney’s, and the entire thing can be downloaded as a PDF. Get it now if you want it: “As far as we know, this script hasn’t been seen anywhere else, and it won’t be seen here for long.”

  Linky linky!

• [andrew brandou]

  jordan crane is THE shiznit!

  by the way check out his handsome mug, among others, here:

  http://web.mac.com/jancorey1/Site_10/Photos.html

  andrew b.

• [Jake0748]

  I just came back here to ditto #17, I bought the book today (What a bonus, one of my current favorite authors, with a super cool book jacket). The copies were all shrink-wrapped to keep the looky-loos from messing them up.

• [paddysat]

  The treatment is really elaborate and luscious, an object lesson in making the physical book into a piece of genuine desiderata, an artifact you want to own as well as read.

  I totally agree. I think that is one of the things that makes McSweeney’s releases and their Quarterly Concern so great. I have been subscribing since issue six and I always get excited when a new one arrives – not just for the great literature inside but also for the original ways in that they package each issue.

  If you want to pay an extra couple of bucks and avoid Amazon, McSweeney’s is selling the Chabon book for $19. (subscribe to the quarterly while you are there. You won’t be disappointed!)

• [vonnegutlives]

  I just finished this book yesterday. It was very good – his examination of Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD and Howard Chaykin’s AMERICAN FLAGG! were the highlights, in my opinion.

• [LB]

  Yeah, I was about to say, not forthcoming, saw it in B&N on Thursdays, drooled over the cover treatment.

• [Bookyloo]

  This book is packaged shrink-wrapped. In our store we take the plastic off a sacrifice copy and let people put their grubby fondling hands all over it. then they buy the pristine wrapped copy. everyone’s happy.

• [Whereismyrobot]

  I am a book processor for a public library and I hate to see stuff like this come in. I know that as soon as it reaches our hands, we practically have to destroy it to be able to put it on the shelves.

  It is should be illegal what we do to Chip Kidd’s books.

• [ReMaines]

  I wonder how well that multiple bellyband with die cut is going to survive in stores. I used to hate anything with a die cut when I worked in a bookstore because people were always tearing them in handling–handling too roughly, or getting the corner of another book caught in the die cut when putting the book back on the shelf–and we’d end up with these perfectly good books that looked tatty and had to be returned because customers didn’t want to buy something with a jacket or cover that looked damaged.

  If this one is made of something heavier than the usual jacket stock, it might survive. Hope so, because it does look lovely.

• [Takuan]

  I like it.

  Now, is there anyway to revive the long play record album jacket/sleeve? Can we create a culture of wanting to own the art and ephemera to go with the mp-3 file on our computer? Sell them separately. Maybe the rapacious, evil,filthy, sick-making record companies could stop suing children for downloading and use some imagination to create something new, instead of continuing to suck our blood like the vile, despicable and contempt worthy, sub-human leech-bastards they are?