French Club (but really, more book covers)

Edit: this post has been shoved back in my schedule several times, and as such is now from absolutely ages ago. Sorry about that. 

Last Sunday I headed to school in the morning in the hopes that I would be able to spend some time designing covers in InDesign for our anthology. Unfortunately, they do not seem to heat the computer room on the weekends, so, when, after an hour and a half, I could no longer feel my fingers, I elected to leave and find somewhere else to hang out until french club convened at two. Rather than hop from coffee shop to coffee shop, I decided to just head to Waterstones, where I drank tea and read Good Omens for several hours. 

Which is really just a lovely way to spend any day. I don't know if it was just the copy of Good Omens that I got from that rather large (and no altogether legal) book download, but it was typographically frustrating. Which is so nerdy. However, I finished Good Omens a couple of days later, and I have to say, it lives up to its reputation - fantastically absurd, funny, and incredibly British. So English it hurts. I recently read a review which summed up Good Omens, which went something like this (SPOILERS) "Six billion people almost die, and it is FUNNY" - I think thats a fairly succinct analysis.

In more nerdy-ness, after French Club, Alix and Rachel and I participated in our weekly tradition of wandering around Waterstones, critiquing book covers.

This cover for 'The Returned', while I really liked the idea behind it, I really did not like the spacing of the type - I thought that both the boy should be lowered slightly, as well as the tagline. I don't like the layout, basically, though I do like the fundamental design elements that they are working with.

It was a rather gloomy and rainy day, but as I left Waterstones, I was again struck by how incredible it is to live here, and to exit a bookshop to be struck by the view of a castle atop a hill, dominating the modern cityscape I was a part of, a strange mix of new and old.