DAN MOGFORD

THE DICKENS DICTIONARY

2012-02-07T12:18:00.000Z

The Dickens Dictionary
John Sutherland, Icon Books 2012

To celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Dickens in 2012, Victorian literature expert John Sutherland has created a gloriously wide-ranging alphabetical companion to Dickens’s novels, excavating the hidden links between his characters, themes, and preoccupations, and the minutiae of his endlessly inventive wordplay.

Covering Baby Farming, Bastards, Cannibalism, Christmas, Darwin, Fog, Gruel, London, Micawberomics, Murder, Pubs, Punishment, Smells, Spontaneous Combustion and Zoo Horrors, to name but a few, Sutherland gives us a uniquely personal guide to the greatest novelist England has ever produced.

CLOSURE LIMITED

2012-02-03T11:02:00.002Z

Closure Limited
Max Brooks, Duckworth 2012

A terrifying new collection of short stories from the master of zombie fiction, Max Brooks, bestselling author of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide and Recorded Attacks.

‘Brooks infuses his writing with such detail and authenticity, one wonders if he knows something we don’t’ Simon Pegg

(That's me, striking a headshot-zombie pose on the cover...)

Written in Stone

2012-01-13T12:27:00.000Z

Written in Stone
Brian Switek, Icon Books, 2012

For over 100 years Darwin’s theory of evolution was dogged by the lack of evidence connecting the main groups of organisms. By the 1970s, some paleontologists began to fear there was no trace of these ‘transitional fossils’ left.

However, recent discoveries of fossilized remains of walking whales in Pakistan, feathered dinosaurs in China, fish with feet in the Arctic Circle, ape-like humans in Africa and many more have revolutionized paleontologists’ understanding of life on Earth.

Switek’s book – a brilliant scientific history by a rising star of science writing – is the first account of the remarkable discovery of these gap fossils and the fascinating new stories they tell.

brianswitek.com • @Laelaps

JAMES BOND • SERIES DESIGN

2011-12-13T15:55:00.000Z

Earlier this year I was asked by Steve Marking – Art Director at Orion Publishing – if I would like to pitch some ideas alongside a handful of other designers and their in-house team for a relaunch of John Gardner's James Bond Novels. I bit his hand off of course.

John Gardner was approached by the estate of Ian Fleming in late 1980 to see if he would consider writing a new James Bond story. After initial hesitation he accepted the challenge and went on to write sixteen 007 adventures between 1981 and 1996, including Goldeneye and Licence to Kill. Orion are reprinting the entire backlist over the next eighteen months to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Gardner's first 007 outing.

I came up with three quite different approaches to pitch to Orion, two of which were, in retrospect, fairly clichéd rehashings of familiar Bond themes – wealthy super-villains, silver, gold, a smudge of sex. Not something I normally design and almost certainly not something I would pick up in a bookshop. The third approach which had been vaguely forming in my head right up until the day before the deadline is what you see here – the kind of thing that I would be drawn to if browsing a bookstore and fortunately the exact thing Orion and Ian Fleming Publications were looking for in the redesign.

They'll be printed on uncoated stock with a clear foil 'varnish' to the key elements. I'll post the rest as and when they are approved.

You can read more about John Gardner and his Bond days at the official site run by his son Simon: www.john-gardner.com

The Etymologicon

2011-10-12T11:40:00.000Z

The Etymologicon

Mark Forsyth, Icon Books 2011

What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces?

The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth’s Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words.

It’s an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

(Production spec: Gold foil blocking on Wibalin Buckram cloth)

Thank You

2011-10-06T10:34:00.000Z

L O L I T A

2011-08-31T13:41:00.002Z

John Bertram and Marco Sonzogni are publishing a book called The Lolita Cover Project:

"A collection of ‘conceptual’ book covers and essays about Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita to addresses the challenges and limits of representation (and mis-representation), and the relationship of a book to its cover. The Lolita Cover Project will feature 50 new ‘conceptual’ covers by leading graphic designers specifically commissioned for the book; critical essays on design and representation by Nabokov scholars, artists, art theorists, and designers."

They kindly asked me to participate, this is my response:

The spiky eye graphic is intended to convey the twisted morals and distorted view of the world of both Humbert and Lolita. The title type is from a 1950s French shop signage catalogue – a nod to the books' first publication.

• More information about the project can be found here

I'm With the Bears

2011-08-16T11:44:00.003Z

I'm With The Bears:

Short Stories from a Damaged Planet

Verso Books 2011

The size and severity of the global climate crisis is such that even the most committed environmentalists can drift into a state of denial. The award-winning writers collected here have made it their task to shake off this nagging disbelief, bringing the incomprehensible within our grasp and shaping an emotional response to the deterioration of our global habitat. From T. C. Boyle’s account of early eco-activists, to Nathaniel Rich’s comic fantasy about a marine biologist haunted by his youth, and David Mitchell’s vision of a near future where oil sells for $800 a barrel – these ten provocative, occasionally chilling, sometimes satirical stories bring a human reality to disasters of inhuman proportions.

Contributors include:

MARGARET ATWOOD
PAOLO BACIGALUPI
T. C. BOYLE
TOBY LITT
LYDIA MILLET
DAVID MITCHELL
NATHANIEL RICH
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
HELEN SIMPSON
WU MING 1

Royalties from the sale of this book will go to 350.org, an international grassroots movement working to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Cover Image: Antti Laitinen, “It’s My Island”

All Over the Map

2011-06-09T14:45:00.002Z

All Over the Map
Michael Sorkin, Verso Books 2011

All Over the Map is an urgent response to the radical changes in contemporary architecture and the built environment witnessed in the twenty-first century. Characteristically polemic, incisive and energetic, these essays explore pressing questions of architectural and urban design, and critical issues of public space and participation. From New York to New Orleans, the Amazon to Jerusalem, Sorkin brings a critical eye to bear on a sweeping range of subjects.

Whether castigating the sorry performance of the architectural avant-garde, considering the nature of place in globalized culture, or providing mock instructions for entering a high-security environment, these writings make a powerful and provocative case for architecture and urban design to re-engage with the lives and societies from which they have become increasingly detached.

CHAVS

2011-06-03T11:11:00.000Z

CHAVS, The Demonisation of the Working Class

Owen Jones, Verso 2011

The British working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society that has become stereotyped by one hate-filled word: chavs. In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from ‘salt of the earth’ to ‘scum of the earth’. Moving through Westminster’s lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones lays bare the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, and reveals a far more complex reality: the increasing poverty and desperation of people left abandoned by the aspirational, society-fragmenting policies of both the Tories and New Labour. A damning indictment of the media and political establishment, Chavs is an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain.

Rainbow Pie

2011-05-17T14:02:00.006Z

Rainbow Pie: A Memoir of Redneck America
Jo Bageant, Portobello Books 2011

While Obama’s triumphant ‘Yes we can’ continued to reverberate, it was tempting to believe that a new era of opportunity had dawned. But for several million dirt-poor, disgruntled Americans the possibility of change is as far away as ever. These are the gun-owning, donut dunkin’, uninsured, underemployed rednecks who occupy America’s heartland: the ones who never got a slice of the pie during the good times, and the ones who have been hit hardest by the economic slump. Theirs is a hard-luck story that goes back generations and Joe Bageant tells it here with poignancy, indignation, and tinder-dry wit. Through the tale of his own rambunctious Scots-Irish family, starting with his grandparents Maw and Pap, Bageant traces the post-war migration of the rural poor to the sprawling suburbs where they found not the affluence they’d dreamed of, but isolation and deprivation, and the bitter futility of hope. What do the white working poor of America want, and what does America want for them?

[Production: 4 colour, laser foil]

The cover photograph was shot in Salton Sea, California - here's a great short film that tells some of the story of this eerie place:

Tony & Susan

2011-03-28T14:21:00.000Z

Tony & Susan

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2011

Many years after their divorce, Susan Morrow receives a strange gift from her ex-husband. A manuscript that tells the story of a terrible crime: an ambush on the highway... a secluded cabin in the woods... a chilling thriller of death and corruption. How could such a harrowing story live within the man she once loved? And why, after such a long time, has he sent her such a disturbing and personal message?

A brilliant, brilliant novel - shamefully overlooked on first publication despite rave reviews including from Saul Bellow "Marvellously written – the last thing you would expect in a story of blood and revenge. Beautiful." Recently rediscovered and the subject of some intense rights bidding by international publishing houses, hopefully a lot more people will get to enjoy this great story.

A few alternative (rejected!) designs:

The Breaking of Eggs

2011-03-02T15:10:00.007Z

The Breaking of Eggs • Jim Powell, Orion Books, 2011

The Breaking of Eggs tells the story of Feliks, a communist sympathiser who has spent his life editing a travel guide to Eastern Europe. But change is in the air… As he is reunited with his long-lost brother and comes face-to-face with the love he let slip through his fingers, Feliks has to face up to the possibility that the convictions he has based his life upon were nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Jim Powell has been selected by the BBC Culture Show as one of the UK's best new novelists.

This was a hefty photoshop comping job - combining 4 separate period photographs into this final composition, matching texture and lighting across the whole image.

I N C O M I N G !

2010-12-03T16:17:00.005Z

INCOMING! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite

Ted Neild, Granta Books 2011

Astonishing new research suggests that 470 million years ago, a stupendous collision in the Asteroid Belt bombarded the Earth with meteorites of all sizes and that the resulting ecological disturbance may have been responsible for the greatest increase in biological diversity since the origin of complex life – the hitherto unexplained Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.

Introducing these fresh discoveries to a wider public for the first time, Ted Nield challenges the orthodox view that major meteorite strikes are always bad news for life on Earth. He argues that one of the most widely known scientific theories – that dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite strike 65 million years ago – isn’t the whole picture, and that the causes of this mass extinction were much more varied and complex.

Meteorites have been the stuff of legend throughout human history, interpreted as omens of doom or objects of power. But only in the late 18th century, when the study of falling space debris became a science, were meteorites used to unlock the mysteries of our planet and our universe. In a wonderfully lively and entertaining style, Incoming! traces the history of meteorites from the first recorded strike to the video recordings made routinely today, showing how our interpretations of meteorites have varied according to the age in which they fall, and how meteorite impacts were given fresh urgency with the advent of the atom bomb and the anxieties of the Cold War. Featuring a wealth of fascinating characters alongside new research, this is the perfect guide to the science of the ‘falling sky’.

Production specs: 5 colour jacket with supermatte lamination and spot UV varnish to type, die-cut circle revealing portion of printed paper case beneath. Printed case featuring wraparound, B-movie disaster illustration!

A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

2010-11-26T13:22:00.013Z

A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

by Owen Hatherley • Verso Books, 2010

‘In this angry, fiercely-funny book, Owen Hatherley steps forward as the Pevsner of the PFI generation. He’s an erudite, urbane guide to the Ballardian wreckage of millennial Britain and the tangle of speculation and social engineering that brought it about. Essential reading for anyone who ever feels their blood start to boil when they hear the word “regeneration”.’

Hari Kunzru, author of My Revolutions

Back in 1997, New Labour came to power amid much talk of regenerating the inner cities left to rot under successive Conservative governments. Over the next decade, British cities became the laboratories of the new enterprise economy: glowing monuments to finance, property speculation, and the service industry – until the crash.

In A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley sets out to explore the wreckage – the buildings that epitomized an age of greed and selfish aspiration. From Greenwich to Glasgow, Milton Keynes to Manchester, Hatherley maps the derelict Britain of the 2010s: from riverside apartment complexes, art galleries, and amorphous interactive ‘centres’, to shopping malls and factory conversion lofts. In doing so, he provides a mordant commentary on the urban environment in which we live, work and consume.

By turns scathing, forensic, and bleakly humorous, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain is a coruscating autopsy of a get-rich-quick, aspirational politics, a brilliant, architectural ‘state we’re in’.

The Good Soldiers

2010-11-16T16:57:00.004Z

The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2010

‘A dozen vehicles were on fire. Burning fuel was everywhere. There had been no siren, no warning at all, just a sudden explosion that felt like the end of the world had arrived...’

For fifteen months, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Finkel toured with the soldiers of the 2-16 battalion. During 2007,they were deployed to enforce the most dangerous areas of Baghdad. The Good Soldiers is the searing account of that time; a shattering portrait of the heroes and the ruined, and a classic chronicle of modern warfare.

Love, Sex, Death & Words

2010-10-15T15:26:00.003Z

Love, Sex, Death & Words

John Sutherland & Stephen Fender, Icon Books, 2010

Love, sex, death, boredom, ecstasy, existential angst, political upheaval – the history of literature offers a rich and varied exploration of the human condition across the centuries.

In this absorbing companion to literature’s rich past, arranged by days of the year, acclaimed critics and friends John Sutherland and Stephen Fender turn up the most inspiring, enlightening, surprising and curious artefacts literature has to offer.

The authors reveal a new calendar of book-lovers’ dates – such as 9 September 1471, on which William Caxton completes his translation of The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, which he will later produce as the first printed book in English; 25 April 1719, when Daniel Defoe invents the English novel with Robinson Crusoe, but has no word to describe his invention; and 8 May 1962, when Dick Francis delivers his first racing thriller to his publisher, having begun writing it on New Year’s Day, creating a timetable he will stick to religiously for 39 years.

Why did 16 June 1904 matter so much to James Joyce? Which great literary love affair was brought to a tragic end on 11 February 1963? And why did Roy Campbell punch Stephen Spender on the nose on 14 April 1949?

_______________________________________________________________

Jacket embossed with gold foil and spot UV varnish

A Preparation for Death

2010-09-08T12:34:00.000Z

A Preparation for Death

Greg Baxter, Penguin, 2010

In his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing – and his life changed utterly. A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place – an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), sexual abandon and personal decay.

The Return of the Public

2010-08-11T14:45:00.002Z

The Return of the Public

By Dan Hind • Verso Books, 2010

Cover photograph: Dan Mogford

Our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy. Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest. Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?

The Sixties

2010-07-30T13:51:00.001Z

The Sixties

Jenny Diski, Profile Books, 2010

Much has been written about the Sixties: tributes to music and fashion, sex, drugs and revolution. Diski’s memoir, The Sixties, breaks the mould, wryly dismantling the big ideas that dominated the era – permissiveness, liberation and self-invention – to consider what Diski and her generation were really up to. Did they take drugs to get by, or to see the world differently? How responsible were they for the self-interest and greed of the Eighties? Diski takes a witty, incisive look at the radical beliefs to which her generation subscribed, little realising they were often old ideas dressed up in new forms. She considers whether she and her peers were as serious as they thought about changing the world; if the hedonistic Sixties were funded by the baby-boomers’ parents; and if the decade’s big idea was that it really meant something to be young.

The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan

2010-07-14T09:25:00.001Z

The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Edited by Nick Turse • Verso Books, 2010

Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama’s “just war,” the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading commentators, politicians, and military strategists to analyze America’s real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan’s previous occupiers—Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war—The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.

Nothing to Envy

2010-07-05T14:47:00.001Z

Nothing to Envy

Barbara Demick, Granta Books, 2010

WINNER OF THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2010

North Korea is one of the most repressive and secretive states on earth. Spying is encouraged, the media is government controlled, Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, banned book. In the 1990s, famine descended. Millions of people died, but the regime remained in power. Through extensive interviews, Barbara Demick has created the first portrait of life in this extraordinary country, weaving together the stories of six ordinary citizens in a gripping and vivid account of adversity and survival in the land of ‘Our Dear Leader’.

‘Many scholars have pored over North Korea’s atrocious history, its fearful politics, abysmal economics and blood-curdling propaganda. No writer I know has done a better job of clothing these academic concerns with the rich detail of the lives of ordinary people – explaining, simply, what it feels like to be a citizen of the cruellest, most repressive and most retrograde country in the world’ The Times

None of Us Were Like This Before

2010-06-07T11:48:00.012Z

None of Us Were Like This Before
Joshua E.S. Phillips • Verso Books, 2010

Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from Iraq only to die in his barracks. For more than three years, reporter Joshua E.S. Phillips—with the support of Adam’s mother and several of his Army buddies—investigated Adam’s death. What Phillips uncovered was a story of American veterans psychologically scarred by the abuse they had meted out to Iraqi prisoners.

How did US forces turn to torture? Phillips’s narrative recounts the journey of a tank battalion—trained for conventional combat—as its focus switches to guerrilla war and prisoner detention. It tells of how a group of ordinary soldiers, ill trained for the responsibilities foisted upon them, descended into the degradation of abuse. The location is far from CIA prisons and Guantanamo, but the story captures the widespread use and nature of torture in the US armed forces.

Based on firsthand reporting from the Middle East, as well as interviews with soldiers, their families and friends, military officials, and the victims of torture, None of Us Were Like This Before reveals how soldiers, senior officials, and the US public came to believe that torture was both effective and necessary. The book illustrates that the damaging legacy of torture is not only borne by the detainees, but also by American soldiers and the country to which they’ve returned.

Filthy English

2010-05-05T10:23:00.012Z

Filthy English

The How, What & Why of Everyday Swearing

Peter Silverton, Portobello Books 2010

I love swearing I really bloody do. Lots of people don't of course – at least not in public – so I was amazed when my "this is what it should look like but nobody is ever going to sign that off" design for this book was snapped up and approved with barely a tweak. I couldn't quite believe that a publisher was happy to plaster a book's front cover with profanity (albeit barely censored profanity). Not only is the front cover a dirty collage of typographical swears but it makes no reference to either the book's actual title or author. Much respect then to Portobello Books, editor Philip Gwyn Jones and author Peter Silverton for going with this rather bold/crude/rude design. The finished product is printed on lovely uncoated card stock and the filth is debossed to reinforce the vintage letterpress style typography.

The last word on the subject though should probably go to Stephen Fry:

Or perhaps Malcolm Tucker: "Fuckity-bye!"

The Plot

2010-04-22T16:43:00.008Z

The Plot
Madeleine Bunting, Granta Books 2010

‘Grippingly readable . . . among the very best non-fiction to have been published in a long while about what it means to be English’ Simon Schama

My design for the paperback outing of this 'biography of an English acre' features the rolling, green dales of Yorkshire, furrowed with the fingerprints of history...

Top: front cover, spine and back;
Bottom: inside of the front and back covers

Getting More

2010-03-19T17:51:00.000Z

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2010

Read Book?

2010-03-19T11:48:00.001Z

An illustration that grew sideways from another project, around the area of publishing futures, ebooks and the evolution of print.

Granta & Portobello Books - Catalogue

2010-03-01T13:51:00.003Z

Design of cover and 64 page catalogue for Granta & Portobello Books. Beautiful front cover photograph courtesy of the talented Shannon Schmidt

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

2010-02-10T10:42:00.000Z

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
Wells Tower, Granta Books 2010

Violent, tender and searingly funny, Wells Tower’s stories have become a phenomenon. His startling portraits of angry teenagers, marauding Vikings and drifting divorcees have earned him a devoted readership, ecstatic critical praise and a string of prizes and nominations. Behind the hype are the stories themselves: explosive combinations of electric prose and dark wit, which signal the arrival of a major new talent.

'Sentences so good you want to cut them out and pin them to the wall' The Times, 100 Best Books of the Decade

‘I have seldom read such a collection more quickly, or with more enjoyment: a truly brilliant debut’ Independent

My Friend Jesus Christ

2010-02-10T10:26:00.006Z

My Friend Jesus Christ
Lars Husum, Portobello 2010
Cover illustration by Neil Webb
When Jesus Christ arrives uninvited at your flat, and gently but firmly advises you to clean up your life, well, naturally, you do as you’re told...

One More Year

2010-02-10T10:24:00.000Z

One More Year
Sana Krasikov, Portobello 2010

The people in Sana Krasikov’s indelible stories are far from home: some of them are new to America, some have returned to their native Russia to find a country they barely recognize. Almost all of them look to love to repair their lives. And if love isn’t there, they’ll try to make do with love’s pale imitations. With its subtle weighings of hearts and minds, One More Year is an exceptional debut from a writer who understands the necessity for compromise – and for hope.

Ablutions

2010-02-10T10:20:00.003Z

Ablutions
Patrick DeWitt, Granta Books, 2010

In a seedy bar in Hollywood, a whiskey-loving barman is drawn into the nocturnal world of his sociopathic clientele, with their squabbles, delusions and bizarre acts of violence. In this brilliantly funny portrait of addiction and its consequences, escape offers the only chance of survival. Utterly absorbing and surprisingly tender, Ablutions is a startlingly bold and original debut.

‘Quite brilliant . . . A brief, intense and carefully sustained piece of writing about the blurry edges of existence, shot though with remarkable lucidity. Warning: Cheers it isn’t’ Guardian

The Notebook

2010-02-10T10:16:00.001Z

The Notebook
José Saramago, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
Verso Books, 2010

Provocative and lyrical, The Notebook records a year in the life of José Saramago, beginning on the eve of the 2008 US presidential election. In these pages, he evokes life in his beloved city of Lisbon, revisits conversations with friends, and meditates on his favorite authors. Precise observations and moments of arresting significance are rendered with pointillist detail, and together demonstrate an acute understanding of our times. Characteristically critical and uncompromising, Saramago dissects the financial crisis, deplores Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, traces the ongoing inquiry into the execution of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Underground, and charts the transition from the era of George W. Bush to that of Barack Obama.

Available for the first time in English, The Notebook offers a rare glimpse into the mind of one of the most original writers of our era.

The Unwritten Laws of Finance & Investment

2010-02-10T10:13:00.001Z

The Unwritten Laws of Finance & Investment
Robert Cole, Profile Books, 2010

The Invention of Paris

2010-02-10T10:06:00.005Z

The Invention of Paris
Eric Hazan, Verso Books , 2010

The Invention of Paris is a tour through the streets and history of the capital under the guidance of radical Parisian author and publisher Eric Hazan.

Hazan introduces a city whose squares echo with the riots, rebellions and revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combining the raconteur’s ear for a story with a historian’s command of the facts, he introduces an incomparable cast of characters: the literati, the philosophers and the artists – Balzac, Baudelaire, Blanqui, Flaubert, Hugo, Manet, and Proust, of course; but also Doisneau, Nerval and Rousseau.

A Short Border Handbook

2010-01-25T15:38:00.002Z

A Short Border Handbook
By Gazmend Kapllani Publisher: Portobello, 2009

From the book's blurb:

A Short Border Handbook offers a unique perspective on being an immigrant, any immigrant, anywhere – Kapllani, who left Albania in 1991 to make his home in Greece, diagnoses the malaise of ‘border syndrome’ by relating his own experience and that of his fellow migrants and reflects what it means to them and to all of us. Kapllani tells the story of his own perilous crossing over the mountains of Albania to reach ‘the-world-beyond-the-borders’ – Greece, whose twinkling electric lights seemed to offer freedom, riches and love. On arriving in the Promised Land, however, he finds that reality does not match his fantasy. Instead of a warm welcome from his long-lost Greek cousins, he is locked up in a detention centre in a small border town. Gazmend and his fellow immigrants try to find jobs and begin to plan their future lives, imagining successes which always remain just beyond their grasp. The sheer absurdity of both their plans and their new lives is overwhelming. Kapllani interweaves this tragicomic tale of lost illusions with a set of acerbic, elegant reflections on the immigrant condition. Neither natives nor migrants emerge unscathed. Both detached and involved, ironic and emotional, Kapllani’s meditations on borders reveal a mental state as much as a geographical experience, and create a brilliantly observed, original and hilarious debut.

Manituana

2009-11-11T16:32:00.003Z

Manituana
A bloody historical epic of exodus and return, torn loyalties and desperate battles, Manituana spans the Atlantic, from the forests of America’s northeast to the underworld of eighteenth-century London. The authors’ collective Wu Ming have created a genre-breaking reimagining of the American War of Independence. A story from the wrong side of history.

Manituana’s fully interactive website is at: www.manituana.com
Publisher: Verso Books , 2009

The Land of Green Plums

2009-11-05T18:13:00.002Z

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009

Set in Romania at the height of Ceausescu’s reign of terror, The Land of Green Plums tells the story of a group of young students, each of whom has left the impoverished provinces in search of better prospects in the city. It is a profound illustration of a totalitarian state which comes to inhabit every aspect of life; to the extent that everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors, or resist them and perish.

Chinese Whispers

2009-10-09T15:43:00.002Z

Chinese Whispers
Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2009

In 1972, Jan Wong became one of only two Westerners admitted to Beijing University at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked Jan for help in leaving China for the United States. Jan, then a starry-eyed Maoist, reported Yin to the authorities. Yin promptly disappeared.

In 2005, thirty-three years later, Jan returned to Beijing to search for Yin: at the very least she wanted to find out whether Yin had survived. Preoccupied by the past, fascinated by China’s present and future, Jan searched out old friends, foes and comrades in the half-familiar city and, finally, uncovered the truth about the fate of the woman she wronged...

Stalking Richard & Judy

2009-10-09T15:02:00.003Z

Stalking Richard & Judy
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2009

“Well,” said Judy. “It’s that time again. Time to announce our book list.”
“Yes,” said Richard, bouncing around in his seat like a toddler on crack. “And I know we say this every year, but honestly – truly – we’ve really surpassed ourselves this time. Haven’t we, love?”

The Book of Dead Philosophers

2009-10-09T14:57:00.003Z

The Book of Dead Philosophers
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009

Aristotle poisoned himself with aconite. Heracleitus suffocated in cow dung. Jeremy Bentham had himself stuffed, and sits on public view in University College London.

The Book of Dead Philosophers catalogues the lives and deaths of nearly two hundred thinkers, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Acutely intelligent and very funny, this unique compilation is both an entertaining introduction to history’s finest minds and a life-affirming enquiry into the possibility and meaning of human happiness.

Are We Related?

2009-10-09T14:18:00.006Z

Are We Related?
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009
Cover painting: Familie am Meer, 1964 © Gerhard Richter 2009
The New Granta Book of the Family

You can’t choose your relatives. But you can love them, loathe them, rage against them or take after them. Right from the earliest issues of Granta, writing about the family, whether as fiction or personal memoir, has been one of the magazine’s strongest elements. Some of the finest pieces from the first fifteen years, 1979 to 1994, were collected in the first Granta Book of the Family, published in 1995. Now, this second volume brings together a new collection of pieces from 1995 to the present, all of which explore the complicated, often fraught relationships that families involve.

Field of Honour, Max Aub

2009-08-27T14:39:00.005Z

Field of Honour

Field of Honour is the first, self-contained instalment of Max Aub’s six-novel epic The Magic Labyrinth, acknowledged in Spain as one of the greatest works of literature to come out of the Spanish Civil War. These novels depict a world populated by characters – both fictional and real – whose political beliefs are founded in blood and sweat.

Publisher: Verso Books , 2009

The Art of Political Murder

2009-08-26T12:12:00.001Z

The Art of Political Murder
Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2009

On a Sunday night in 1998, Bishop Juan Gerardi, Guatemala’s leading human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death. Two days earlier, a Church-sponsored report had implicated Guatemala’s government in the disappearances of 200,000 civilians. The Church, feeling that it could not rely on the legal system, took the controversial decision to assemble a team of men, Los Intocables (The Untouchables), to take down Gerardi’s killers.

In a gripping reconstruction, worthy of Graham Greene, Francisco Goldman traces Los Intocables struggle with the Guatemalan authorities to reveal the true story, uncovering the involvement of youth gangs, political corruption and organised crime. Most of all, he tells the story of an extraordinary group of courageous people and their fight for justice.

The Plot

2009-08-26T12:09:00.003Z

The Plot
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009
A Biography of an English Acre

On a remote edge of the North York moors, where a grassy hillside overlooks the Vale of York, there is a secluded acre of land, edged by woods, called Scotch Corner. A mysterious war memorial chapel stands there, a simple stone building, decorated with bold carvings.

Madeleine Bunting’s father – an artist and visionary, but also a fiercely conservative man, with romantic, old-fashioned views about England – erected the chapel in his youth. He was a difficult, distant parent, and Bunting fled her home life in Yorkshire as a teenager. But after her father’s death, Bunting wanted to understand him and his passionate, lifelong attachment to this plot of land, and she wanted to explore how we find a sense of belonging.

Filming Pancho

2009-08-26T12:02:00.003Z

Filming Pancho

On 3 January 1914 Pancho Villa became Hollywood’s first Mexican superstar. In signing an exclusive movie contract, Villa agreed to keep other film companies from his battlefield, to fight in daylight wherever possible, and to reconstruct battles if the footage needed reshooting.

Through memoir and newspaper reports, Margarita De Orellana looks at the documentary film-makers who covered events in Mexico. Feature film-makers in Hollywood portrayed the border as the dividing line between order and chaos, in the process developing a series of lasting Mexican stereotypes—the greaser, the bandit, the beautiful señorita, the exotic Aztec. Filming Pancho reveals how Mexico was constructed in the American imagination and how movies reinforced and justified both American expansionism and racial and social prejudice.

Publisher: Verso, 2009
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Edward de Bono - Series Design

2009-06-11T15:28:00.006Z

Edward de Bono
Six Thinking Hats • Simplicity • Lateral Thinking • How to be More Interesting • I am Right, You are Wrong • Teach Yourself to Think

For the redesign of Penguin's Edward de Bono backlist I was asked to create a recognisable brand for his name and define a bright, energetic look that would appeal across the business and psychology markets as well as to the general reader.

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2010

The Rehearsal

2009-04-28T14:50:00.010Z

The Rehearsal
By Eleanor Catton
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009

In Eleanor Catton’s stunning debut, the fallout from a high school sex scandal not only jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency but becomes the subject of the local drama school’s show. Soon the boundaries between private and public and performance and reality begin to dissolve . . .

To read the first chapter of The Rehearsal along with further advance praise for Eleanor Catton, visit www.granta.com/rehearsal

As part of the promotional package for this book I also designed these bookmarks, die-cut to mimic tear-off theatre tickets.

Fishing in Utopia

2009-04-17T10:43:00.005Z

Fishing in Utopia by Andrew Brown
Publisher: Granta Books, 2009
Sweden and the future that disappeared

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE 2009

In the 1970s Andrew Brown, a misfit young Englishman, moved to Sweden, enticed by the possibility of a cleaner, kinder, more rational future. He married a Swedish woman, learned to fish, and brought up his young son in their makeshift cottage in the woods. But during the 1980s, his marriage and his country fell apart as the temptations of the outside world forced their way in. The prime minister, Olof Palme, was assassinated. The welfare system crumbled. Brown returned home. Twenty years after Palme’s murder, Brown travelled the length of Sweden in search of the country he had loved, and then hated, and now found he loved again.

This is the paperback edition. My design for the hardback is here

Bill Bryson: Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words

2009-03-31T14:20:00.013Z

Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words
I was briefed by Andrew Smith at Penguin to create a bright, fresh new look for these classic Bill Bryson titles. Having spent time researching the various illustration elements it was nice to get away from the computer screen and get my hands dirty making and photographing the 3D paper character and insects.

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2009

Mother Tongue

More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...'

Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use.

Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.

Troublesome Words

What is the difference between mean and median, blatant and flagrant, flout and flaunt? Is it whodunnit or whodunit? Do you know? Are you sure?

With Troublesome Words, journalist and bestselling travel-writer Bill Bryson gives us a clear, concise and entertaining guide to the problems of English usage and spelling that has been an indispensable companion to those who work with the written word for over twenty years.

So if you want to discover whether you should care about split infinitives, are cursed with an uncontrollable outbreak of commas or were wondering if that newsreader was right to say 'an historic day', this superb book is the place to find out

Nella Last - War and Peace

2009-02-17T12:48:00.009Z

Nella Last's War & Nella Last's Peace
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Nella Last’s War established a housewife and mother from Barrow-in-Furness as one of the most powerful and moving voices of the Second World War, and inspired the award-winning television drama Housewife, 49. In the next instalment of her unique diaries, Nella Last describes how ordinary people re-built their lives after the war was over.

Publisher: Profile Books, 2008

F-Woman

2009-02-14T12:09:00.003Z

F-Woman
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2009
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Cynthia Lelague is a journalist by day and a vigilante, self-styled ‘F-woman’, by night, when she hunts down the sex criminals who terrorise the streets of Los Angeles. On apprehending them, she trusses them up and leaves them for the police to find. A single encounter with F-woman appears to be enough to prevent her victims from offending again.

F-woman becomes a popular heroine, the subject of frenzied adoration in the city of superstars. But the enigmatic Dr James Holocenter, chief psychiatrist at the L.A.P.D., is obsessed with bringing her to his – rather different – version of justice. A thrilling cat-and-mouse drama ensues, leading to a spectacular and hilarious climax.

F-Woman has been widely acclaimed in Europe, but, though written in English, has never before been published in the UK.
At once a compulsive page-turner, a spoof on the superhero genre and a ferocious critique of Hollywood, it remains a gloriously unpredictable, satirical masterpiece by one of the most original and versatile writers in the English language.

Corvus: A Life With Birds

2009-02-14T12:06:00.002Z

Corvus: A Life with Birds
Paperback edition. Publisher: Granta Books, 2009

Cutting Up Playgirl

2008-12-03T15:16:00.004Z

Cutting Up Playgirl
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2009
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Cutting Up Playgirl is one woman’s extraordinary account of her quest for sexual and emotional fulfilment. Poignant and hilarious, this startlingly honest memoir will speak to all women who find their sex lives don’t quite fit the stereotypes of the modern media.

‘As close to candid as it is possible to get’
Tim Parks

BODIES

2008-11-07T17:18:00.012Z

Bodies
Susie Orbach

Cover design for the latest in Profile Books' BIG IDEAS series.

Some thirty years after the publication of the bestselling Fat is a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach argues that the way we view our bodies has become the mirror of how we view ourselves with our body bearing the measure of our worth. In this book she raises fundamental questions about how we arrived here and proposes new theory on how we become embodied.

Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
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Bloody Old Britain

2008-10-29T11:51:00.004Z

Bloody Old Britain
O.G.S. Crawford and the Archaeology of Modern Life
O.G.S. Crawford on Wikipedia
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008

The Liberal Defence of Murder

2008-10-23T10:40:00.000Z

The Liberal Defence of Murder
Publisher: Verso, 2008
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A Short Border Handbook

2008-10-20T17:30:00.008Z

A Short Border Handbook
By Gazmend Kapllani
Publisher: Portobello, 2009

From the book's blurb:

A Short Border Handbook offers a unique perspective on being an immigrant, any immigrant, anywhere – Kapllani, who left Albania in 1991 to make his home in Greece, diagnoses the malaise of ‘border syndrome’ by relating his own experience and that of his fellow migrants and reflects what it means to them and to all of us.

Kapllani tells the story of his own perilous crossing over the mountains of Albania to reach ‘the-world-beyond-the-borders’ – Greece, whose twinkling electric lights seemed to offer freedom, riches and love. On arriving in the Promised Land, however, he finds that reality does not match his fantasy. Instead of a warm welcome from his long-lost Greek cousins, he is locked up in a detention centre in a small border town. Gazmend and his fellow immigrants try to find jobs and begin to plan their future lives, imagining successes which always remain just beyond their grasp. The sheer absurdity of both their plans and their new lives is overwhelming.

Kapllani interweaves this tragicomic tale of lost illusions with a set of acerbic, elegant reflections on the immigrant condition. Neither natives nor migrants emerge unscathed. Both detached and involved, ironic and emotional, Kapllani’s meditations on borders reveal a mental state as much as a geographical experience, and create a brilliantly observed, original and hilarious debut.

Ink on Paper

2008-10-09T13:17:00.009Z

On the rise of the E-book and threats to traditional publishing.
Photography: Dan Mogford

Granta Magazine #103

2008-10-08T09:54:00.006Z

Cover illustration for Granta issue 103

How I Learned to Stop Worryingand Love Neil Diamond

2008-09-17T10:10:00.009Z

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond
By David Wild
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2008
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In this intimate insider’s portrait of Neil Diamond, the singer-songwriter behind such enduring anthems as ‘Cherry, Cherry’, ‘Sweet Caroline’, and ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’, Rolling Stone journalist David Wild examines Diamond’s singular place in the pantheon of popular music, and describes how an introspective kid from Brooklyn went from being a struggling Brill Building songwriter to become a multi-platinum global superstar and the voice of a generation.

The Thin Blue Line

2008-09-15T16:34:00.002Z

The Thin Blue Line
How Humanitarianism Went to War
Publisher: Verso, 2008
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Stop Me if You've Heard This

2008-09-03T12:36:00.004Z

Stop Me if You've Heard This
A history and philosophy of jokes.
Geddit? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink etc.
Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
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Granta & Portobello Books - Catalogue

2008-09-02T16:32:00.004Z

Design of new books catalogue for two independent British publishers.
Portobello, Granta Books

The Konkans

2008-08-20T10:14:00.000Z

The Konkans
By Tony D'Souza
Publisher: Portobello, 2008

The Philosopher and the Wolf

2008-08-18T11:15:00.000Z

The Philosopher and the Wolf
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008

Dancing on Ice

2008-08-18T11:11:00.003Z

Dancing on Ice
By Jeremy Scott
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2008
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In 1930 Gino Watkins led a group of fourteen intrepid and largely inexperienced young men, including the author’s father,
on a year-long expedition to the Arctic.

Their stated aim was to find an air-route over the polar regions, charting the shortest distance between Europe and America and thus paving the way for passenger air travel. But the real motives were deeper and more complex. Too young to have fought in the war that had taken so heavy a toll on their parents’ generation, they found themselves unable to accept the comfortable, dull life that England seemed to offer. They thirsted for adventure, for risk, for the chance to prove their mettle. In the words of one of their group, they wanted to ‘do something big’.

CAPTIVES

2008-08-18T11:04:00.004Z

Captives
By Todd Hasak-Lowy
Publisher: Doubleday / Random House, New York, 2008
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A F R I C A

2008-08-15T17:22:00.001Z

Africa
By Richard Dowden
Publisher: Portobello, 2008

CORVUS

2008-08-15T17:20:00.000Z

Corvus: A Life with Birds
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008

Savage Mules

2008-08-15T17:18:00.000Z

Savage Mules
By Dennis Perrin
Publisher: Verso, 2008
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The Smoking Diaries, Limited edition boxset

2008-08-14T10:08:00.000Z

The Smoking Diaries VOL I-III

2008-08-14T09:43:00.005Z

The Smoking Diaries VOL I-III
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008
The designs for the paperback editions of Simon Gray's brilliant diaries. Now sadly being published posthumously as Simon died on August 6th 2008.

'Few writers – even those who present a carefully nurtured, self-deprecatory public image – have pursued so many careers, all involving ferociously committed hard graft, as Simon Gray. Successful as academic, novelist and dramatist for stage, television and radio, he found in several volumes as a later-life memoirist the ideal outlet for a rich seam of material, variously bilious, hilarious, irascible and on occasion deeply affecting, as he reflected on his life as an accident-prone, chain-smoking ex-alcoholic and, latterly, cancer-suffering writer.'

Independent, 8/8/08

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Fishing in Utopia

2008-06-10T10:51:00.000Z

Fishing in Utopia
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008
Sweden and the future that disappeared
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DEMOCRACY

2008-06-10T10:47:00.001Z

Democracy
Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
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COMPLAINT

2008-05-22T10:18:00.001Z

Complaint
Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
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The Threat to Reason

2008-05-22T10:17:00.000Z

The Threat to Reason
Publisher: Verso, 2008
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2008-04-28T16:14:00.002Z

HOTEL ELEPHANT

2008-04-09T13:35:00.005Z

Design of catalogue and supporting materials for an artist's exhibition.

The Last Cigarete

2008-03-19T10:42:00.003Z

The Last Cigarette – Simon Gray
Publisher: Granta Books, 2008
The final volume in Simon Gray's excellent Smoking Diaries trilogy...
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We-Think

2008-03-19T10:37:00.002Z

We-Think
Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
We-think the website
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Politics Noir

2008-03-19T10:36:00.002Z

Politics Noir
Publisher: Verso, 2008
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The Coup

2008-03-19T10:26:00.003Z

The Coup
Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2008
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Morcheeba - Dive Deep

2008-02-02T08:11:00.001Z

The Ends of the Earth

2008-01-10T14:33:00.000Z

The Ends of the Earth
Client: Granta Books, 2008
Two anthologies of spectacular writing on the Arctic and Antarctic - in an icy slipcase.
Design & Art Direction: Dan Mogford
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SUPERCONTINENT

2008-01-10T14:25:00.001Z

Supercontinent
Client: Granta Books, 2008
Ten billion years in the life of our planet...
The original plan was to use just UV Gloss varnish for the type on the front, not grey as here, but I guess that was considered a little too risky by the notoriously risk averse S&M dept... oh well, still turned out punchy I think.
Design & Art Direction: Dan Mogford
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2007-09-11T12:47:00.000Z

Granta Diary 2008
Client: Granta Books, 2008
Design & Art Direction: Dan Mogford
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Granta Books: catalogue, Spring 08

2007-09-11T12:41:00.000Z

Granta Books: catalogue, Spring 08
Client: Granta Books, 2008
Design: Dan Mogford
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Profile Books: catalogue cover, Spring 2008

2007-09-11T12:36:00.001Z

Profile Books: catalogue cover
Publisher: Profile Books, 2008
Design+Illustration: Dan Mogford
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A History of Forgetting

2007-09-10T10:34:00.001Z

A History of Forgetting, Norman Klein
Publisher: Verso, 2007
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Planet of Slums

2007-07-16T12:32:00.000Z

Planet of Slums
Publisher: Verso, 2007
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Kafka's Soup

2007-07-09T17:20:00.001Z

Kafka's Soup
Publisher: Granta Books, 2007
A complete history of literature in 17 recipes
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Welcome to Everytown

2007-07-09T17:17:00.001Z

Welcome to Everytown – Julian Baggini
Publisher: Granta Books, 2007
Non-Fiction
Design: Dan Mogford
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JUDE: Level 1

2007-07-09T17:06:00.001Z

JUDE: Level 1
Publisher: Old Street, 2007
Author: Julian Gough
Had huge fun working on this cover for a hugely fun novel :)
Design+Illustration: Dan Mogford
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Profile Books catalogue cover, Autumn 2007

2007-02-26T09:41:00.000Z

Profile Books: catalogue cover
Publisher: Profile Books, 2007
Illustration for a publisher's catalogue, incorporating a variety of characters from their jacket designs.
Design+Illustration: Dan Mogford
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Hold Everything Dear, John Berger

2007-02-26T09:31:00.000Z

Hold Everything Dear
Publisher: Verso, 2007
Hold Everything Dear is John Berger’s vital response to today’s global economic and military tyranny. From Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and 7/7, to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East.
Design: Dan Mogford
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Talk to the Hand

2007-01-17T10:33:00.000Z

Talk to the Hand
Publisher: Profile Books, 2006
Design: Dan Mogford
Illustration: Lara Harwood
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Granta Magazine

2007-01-17T10:08:00.000Z

Granta Magazine
Publisher: Granta, 2005
Fiction, reportage and photography
Design and Art Direction: Dan Mogford
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S P A C E

2006-11-10T18:46:00.000Z

CCCP6, originally uploaded by dan mogford.

Part of a set of fantastic 1950s soviet matchboxes I found on eBay.

The Smoking Diaries

2006-11-10T12:02:00.000Z

The Smoking Diaries – Simon Gray
Publisher: Granta Books, 2005
Non-Fiction
Design: Dan Mogford
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