Love is a mixed up thing

Love is a Mix Tape is a book about music lists, mid-90s alt-rock and sudden death, written by a self-confessed craven hermit. How could anyone who had actually read (or, let's be honest, even skimmed) the manuscript think that the cover above was going to be a good idea? The overall effect is topped-off by a lovely gold spine, with title reversed out in white.

I had read some mildly-positive reviews and almost bought a copy a year or two ago when it had the original trade paperback cover, but for some reason I resisted. When I saw the mass market version in a well-known discount bookstore a few weeks ago I almost didn't recognise it, but once I had made the connection was sufficiently interested to lash out and spend $5.

It isn't as bad as you might imagine from the cover – there are some good lines ("does your boy-friend wear glasses", "no a walkman") and touching passages – but overall it is not good.

It was probably never going to be the easiest commission, but how could it go so badly wrong? I can almost see the sales and marketing meeting:
Sales expert "hmmm, the trade paperback didn't take off like we expected, even with some good reviews and catalogue placement"
Marketing expert "what we need is a completely new direction ... can we try to tap into a slighty wider market than mid-30s, sad loser, music obsessives?"
Sales "great idea – lets go for the girlfriends of mid-30s, sad loser, music obsessives as well!"
Marketing "excellent – I'll see what we can come up with"

However, I really should have guessed from the titles of books advertised on the last few pages – Alice in La La Land, The Shoe Queen, Gucci Mamas and Not Meeting Mr Right ...

Book covers (or how not to sell me a book)

Compare the two covers for Graham Robb's recent book The Discovery of France –



Hardcover above, paperback below.

The hardback made me think of merchant bankers who have just bought a farmhouse in Provence, who need a weighty historical coffee-table title to casually place in the lounge of their latest addition to the real estate portfolio. The paperback looks like it is designed to appeal to the same people who like jokey travel literature of the type invented by Bill Bryson, but more recently exemplified by authors like Pete McCarthy and Tim Moore.

Surprisingly, I don't fall into either of those categories. But having read a bit more about Graham's book (and watching him talk and read from it at Guardian Books) it sounds great. His discussion on the ebb and flow of the influence of Paris on the rest of the country and the process by which regional influences have reasserted themselves on the national psyche, sounds particularly interesting.

Also he mentions the Landes de Gasciogne shepherds (one can be seen on the cover of the paperback, bottom left) who, in my opinion, have always been unfairly neglected in English-language histories and studies of France. Because of the marshy shrublands where they grazed their sheep they used stilts to keep track of their flocks and watch out for strays. They also had an ingenious third-leg which allowed them to rest without having to remove their stilts – as shown by Claude Viseux's statue on the outskirts of Mont de Marsan.


I remember a particularly surreal French Orienteering Championships where, if I recall correctly, the prizes were presented by shepherds on stilts ...