Try just a little bit...

I managed a break from more academic reading yesterday to devour India Knight's Mutton. It's a charming installment in the life of Knight's heroine Clara, what can best be termed the cosmetic surgery flirtation. But what stopped me dead in my tracks? Its very lovely design.

The cover is embossed, with alligator skin, redolent of ancient reptiles and old bags (ahem), but the very sweet little cartoon is NOT textured. The endpapers are a charming floral print. The cost of such fripperies (which I use here, as I was told fifteen years ago to remove it from a feature story as it "wasn't a newspaper word." Obviously, the editor was mad because I sent her to her dictionary...) had to be mere pennies, but what a transformation into OBJECT! Give me books this lovely, and I'd never use a Kindle.

It didn't surprise me that it was from Penguin, as I have always been impressed with their design savvy. Anyone who can monetize the public domain through the aesthetic rocks in my estimation...