Title: And This Is True
Author: Emily Mackie
Publisher: London: Sceptre, 2010
Call No.: English MAC
I was instantly attracted to this book because of the intricate patterns on the cover. The design reminds me of what a bored student can do with free time and unlimited green and red gel ink pens. The design seems hand-drawn; the pen strokes uneven in some parts. What I later discovered was that the book cover is more than just the design. I took apart the plastic cover (carefully) and discovered a hidden world.
The beautiful design wraps around the entire book jacket. Not only that, the book cover opens up to be a giant canvas with details of layout of a house and a caravan.
The cover, once expanded, lets on more about the novel. The story goes that the protagonist Nevis lives in a van with his father. One day the father crashes the van, and they are forced to take up residence at a nearby farmhouse. These settings are incorporated into the book cover, and makes it rather interesting in retrospect after reading the book. The book blurb also generates a fair bit of intrigue pitching this as a contemporary fairytale of some sort. (Be forewarned – some elements of this book are controversial).
3 comments
Pat says:
Jan 22, 2012
From review: “I took apart the plastic cover (carefully) and discovered a hidden world.”
Wow … thanks for showing us the hidden faces of the book’s flap-cover. I’m sufficiently intrigued to want to check out the book at the library.
Unfortunately, the photo of the expanded cover is too small to show the details & text clearly. Do the loan copies available at NLB’s libraries allow readers to carefully explore the full cover like you did ? Or is this title shrink-trapped (err … wrapped) like the other library books with conventional covers ?
Wan Ni says:
Jan 26, 2012
Hi Pat,
for the record I am not encouraging readers to take apart our protective covers because they do contain our barcode labels and all.
I will try to see how I can insert a clickable hi-res full-size version of the cover.
Pat says:
Apr 8, 2012
Hi Wan Ni — I had recently managed to borrow a copy of ‘And This is True’, & I’m currently in the midst of reading it.
Don’t worry … I did not consider dismantling the plastic wrapping around the book’s folded jacket, although I did try my best to (gently) peek under the tightly-secured flaps.
Perhaps in the future, NLB can consider wrapping similarly “creative” book jackets in a different way, so that the folded bits do not become inaccessible to readers. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing a web-res but full-size image (if available) of the cover-jacket.
The said image can also be inserted into NLB’s catalogue record for the title under the [Book Jacket] hyperlink (which currently leads to a small thumbnail image).