Camus Book Cover Art

I’m currently reading “The Fall” by Albert Camus. On top of that, my Camus library also consists of “The Stranger”, “The Myth of Sisyphus”, and “The Plague”. Looking at the cover art on each of these books, and noticing the sameness between them all (black and white covers utilizing geometric shapes, usually symmetrically), I began to wonder what the intent of the art was, and if the same artist had done all of the covers.

So I started looking around, and found Helen Yentus, a book cover art designer who worked on a line of Camus’ books back in what appears to be the late 80s/early 90s. On art, in her own words:

“I like to start with a blank slate,” Helen Yentus explains over coffee at a bustling Brooklyn café filled with fellow twentysomethings. “I enjoy the feeling of not knowing what I’m doing.”

From there, my search took me here, to The Book Cover Archive, that holds scads of cover art designs. Really neat stuff in there!

And this got me thinking about book cover art in general; if there’s a community out there that appreciates it, collects it, even holds exhibitions for it. A cover is something I often overlook when getting a book and, as much as I hate to admit it, also something I often take off straight-away so that I don’t have to deal with it when reading.

Anyone out there have any covers they like? Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment below with your favorites.

EDIT: These couldn’t have been done in the late 80s early 90s, as the article says she’s a twentysomething… I’ll do some searching around to see when they were made.

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