[jasonzc]

http://boingboing.net/2013/01/10/cover-for-new-edition-of-orwel.html

Added image --Betsy

 

[56139]

Wow - That. Is. Fugly.

 

[tensen]

Personally I think they tried to do a mock of modern art. My opinion it failed.

 

[John Daulton]

I think it's a clever idea  (sort of, I agree with tensen above), but it doesn't seem to really invite reading. To the uninitiated, they might think it's about penguins or something. It also might be mistaken for a teacher's copy edition, and people scanning a list of books on Amazon or whatever will probably skim right past it. I'm not sure people in skim mode are in a frame of mind to put the puzzle together, simple as it is, so seems like they'd more likely just move along. It would be a fun gift idea for your reader friends out there, though.

 

[R.A. Hobbs]

At first glance it looks like a book about a penguin. And I wouldn't take a second glance.

 

[Jonathan C. Gillespie]

I love the concept, but they should have done something like this:

Spoiler

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently.

1984

Spoiler

We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

 

[Guest]

I love the concept, but they should have done something like this:

Spoiler

Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently.

1984

Spoiler

We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

Agreed. And they should have cut the random penguin.

 

[matthewturner]

Hahaha it took me a while to catch on. Hmmm, brain must be slow today!


Matthew

 

[George Berger]

Personally I think they tried to do a mock of modern art.

No, a mockery of modern art is Amazon's covers for all the old James Bond novels. <shudder>

 

[olefish]

the simple starkness of the elements makes the company logo much too prominent. whatever boldness or they were going is effectively muted by the penguin and company logo.  Fail.

 

[Dormouse]

I think it really works for 1984 and has this classic Penguin look about it.

 

[ruecole]

the simple starkness of the elements makes the company logo much too prominent. whatever boldness or they were going is effectively muted by the penguin and company logo. Fail.

^^^ This was my thought, too.

Rue

 

[Krista D. Ball]

I love it. It's aimed at people like me, who know instantly what the book this is, not for the Grade 10 student needing to find the book for a class project.

 

[geoffnolan]

Yeah I'm sure most people who are going to by 1984 are *going to buy* 1984 regardless of cover.

 

[Bec]

I think it's brilliant.

But I'm familiar with both 1984 and Penguin Classics.

Agree that to the casual observer who is not familiar with either, not so good.

But this is probably not aimed at them.

It's clever. It made me smile. And want to buy the paperback.

 

[ElHawk]

I like it, but I'm a fan of the book.  It fits in with the Penguin Classics cover, though I wonder why they didn't white out the title and author instead of blacking them out.  It would have fit even better with the Classics look!

 

[A.A]

1984 is one of my top 5 favourite books.
It looks like this is meant to have a Penguin classics look, so there wasn't much they could do. In my opinion - nothing to see here.  

If they really wanted to be arty... they could have had almost nothing on the cover - just a black cover with the name. author and Penguin logo almost blacked out - but with a single speck of dust. You couldn't get more powerful imagery than that. Any 1984 fan would know what the book was and others might be intrigued enough to read it.

 

[dalya]

Those are all ugly and I hate them.

 

[56139]

Those are all ugly and I hate them.

I got all excited, hoping to see something cool and dystopian looking, and they give me this? Yuk. 1984 is only a passably readable book to me anyway, I get what they were doing. But wow. Would never make me want to give it another try or pick it up for "collecting". I mean, if I wanted to collect 1984, I'd get myself a first edition signed copy. Not a fugly Penguin Classic.

 

[RM Prioleau]

1984 is one of my favorite old books. But seriously, how many times are they going to change the cover? Personally, I liked this one the most: