The above is from Mark Weaver’s Make Something Cool Every Day project. Check out his flickr page to see the whole set, each image more magnetizing than the last.

I know there’s a lot of you out there who make it a point to write every day and sometimes it feels like a job, that you’re just sitting there typing away at some bullshit because otherwise you’d feel lazy and unproductive. What if instead of telling yourself, “I’m going to write every day,” you tell yourself, “I’m going to write something cool every day?” Whatever the definition cool means to you, you write it.

I try to write every day. Sometimes it feels like a job. Like I’m just typing away at some bullshit because otherwise I’d feel lazy and unproductive. As an experiment inspired by Mark Weaver I’m going to stop telling myself, “I am going to write every day” and instead tell myself, “I am going to write something cool every day,” and see where that gets me. Go, Mark Weaver, go!

Thanks to Gia for the heads up!

Book cover design virtuoso Jim Tierney redesigned four classic Jules Verne novels, not for some reissue campaign for a big time publisher, but for his senior project.

Jim employs all sorts of whimsical, rarely-used cover design methods like die cut half jackets, spin wheels and translucent film.

The best part about these covers is you need only glance at them to get a potent taste of the adventure that lies within.

The worst part about them is that they are one of a kind. Hey Penguin! Get off your ass and mass produce these.

Click over to Faceout Books to read a short interview with Jim about the process.

Thanks to Danny J for the heads up!

I don’t know anything about this book but I’m already interested. When designing a book cover, this is the sentiment you’re trying to get out of a random book buyer. Caketrain not only nailed this requisite, but they just plain knocked it out of the park with Kim Parko’s Cure All. They’re getting their money’s worth out of Elene Usdin’s dreamy, haunting photograph. Full of movement and light, straddling a line somewhere between enticing and frightening. Well done, Amanda and Joseph.

Heads-up: Elene Usdin is unveiling her new show, “Femmes D’Interieur,” in Brooklyn this month. If you like this cover you should go check out this very talented French photographer.

Like setting sandbags against the portals for an oncoming flood, we’re bracing ourselves for the deluge of work on our next print issue. Which means a few months from now a giant semi truck is going to arrive at our doorstep delivering ten or so heavy boxes full of books. Our storage space is bursting at the seems. To empty it a little bit we’re giving you the opportunity of a lifetime:

Annalemma Issue #4 is on sale for half price! That’s $5 for stories by Joe Meno, Nick Ostdick, Thomas Cooper and many more. What else does $5 get you? Illustrations by Spanish illustration sensation Raquel Aparicio, photos by Simi Valley photographic inspiration sensation Alex Martinez, and an essay by Sam Weller about Kiss.

What are you waiting for? Forget that five dollar foot-long, spend your money on something that will last!

Stumbled upon UK illustrator and book cover design virtuoso  Adam Simpson and found his cover for last year’s Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog by Aussie writer P. Robert Smith. It’s rare you find yourself looking at a book cover for more than three to five seconds. This one won’t let you take your eyes off it until you’ve figured out what’s going on with every tiny Where’s Waldo-esque character. You are amazing, Adam!

Our intern reports from Miami. Take it away Janelle!

Art Basel was in Miami this past weekend and I just had to be there. Why? Well, I love Miami, I love art, I love a good time, and my sister was in need of some inspiration.

Can I be honest though? I say I love art, and I do, but I know very little about it. What I learned in humanities classes years ago is long gone and there were probably times this weekend I was ignorantly admiring advertisements like this guy…

And the idea of writing about art here made me anxious.

But it’s all okay. Thanks to my sister. She supplemented my slack-jawed appreciation with some solid facts and I ended up learning a few new things.

Shepard Fairey.

Os Gemeos.

You have to see this. Just because.

Art is forever evolving and I shouldn’t have assumed I ever knew anything about anything. All I can do is appreciate and support.

Wow, been a while since we done one of these.

I’m calling bullshit on Amazon’s Best Book Covers of 2009. Given, there are some nice covers you can vote on, but does it irk anyone else that the nominees are all Amazon best sellers? What about all the choice book covers that have been featured on The Book Cover Archive? For my money, any given entry on BCA blows the Chronic City cover out the water. Let’s start our own list. Anyone have a vote for best book cover of the year? Post a link to the image in the comments section.

(Yes, I realize calling bullshit on Amazon is like calling bullshit on Disney or Starbucks, it’s granted at this point that they’re a huge greedy corporation that is the #1 enemy of the indie book store. Yes, I realize that their contest is a thinly veiled sales push for the holiday season. Regardless. Bullshit!)

MAKR and I went up to Chicago. He had to go to Horween, one of the oldest leather tanneries in the country, to pick out some hides to make into bags.

It was like Charlie and the Chocolate factory. But with dead flesh.

This is what it looks like in Jason’s brain.

This is how the hides come in. That’s horse hide imported from France.

I want Horace McCoy to write a book called The French Eat Horses, Don’t They?

The hides are bathed in a sort of bleach wash deal that turns them into pasty white piles of mush.

Leather byproduct splatter strewn across an American flag. There’s a metaphor there but I’m not sure what it is.

Most footballs used for pro games? Yup. They came from Horween.

This place has been around since 1905 and is still family owned and operated. Skip Horween, the gentleman who showed us around, took us to this dark hole where the hides dry.

Horween is the last place in the States to make Cordovan, which is essentially the butt of the horse. I told Skip that it kind of looks like Illinois. He agreed and told us that an uncut hide looks like the United States. I said there was another good metaphor in there somwhwere. Skip quietly tolerated the foppish writer by saying, “Yeah, there’s something in there.”

But it wasn’t all leather for us. Side note: I enjoyed introducing Jason to my Chicago friends by saying, “This is Jason. He’s really into leather.”

We went to the Russian Tea Room, which made people whisper further.

We took the pink line (God, this is getting bad) down to Pilsen.

If you live in the greater Chicago area, care about the most interesting stuff happening in art book publishing and you have not yet been to Golden Age then you, my friend, are robbing yourself of one of the better experiences of your lifetime.

Go see Marco and his amazing store right away!

This was one of the best trips I’ve made back to the city since I moved. Without a doubt.

Thank you Tom, Bill, Ben, Anne, Theresa and Sheba. I miss you all.

And dare I say it? I miss this city.

Sarah Manguso’s memoir concerning a blood disease that made her body turn against itself yields not one but two beautiful book covers. Above is the paperback (which I kind of like better, a bit more striking) and below is the more sedate, but equally beautiful, hardcover:

Not sure what those things are. Some sort of medical supplies (IV tubes? Catheters?) shaped to look like a kind of musical signature symbol or type embellishment. I’m guessing a nod to Manguso’s poetic roots and lyrical language. Designs by Alexander Knowlton and Jennifer Carrow, respectively.

Thanks The Rumpus and BDR.

Designers Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen have taken it upon themselves to archive some of the best book covers of recent memory over at The Book Cover Archive. While most bloggers are satisfied writing pithy reviews of book covers (ahem) BCA simply lets the cover speak for itself, as well as providing useful information as to who actually designed what. Well done fellas. Now go waste your morning at this place.