When I had to choose a cover for By No Means Equal I followed my usual course of looking at pictures of places where I had lived. My first book showed Beachy Head lighthouse on the Sussex coast. I didn't actually live in the lighthouse, though I did once climb up the ladder that is attached to the outside which was a windy experience.
The second book Remember the Creator had a rather dramatic picture of le Mont St Michel, featured because I lived for 8 years in the nearby town of Avranches. Then came St Catherine's Chapel in Abbotsbury for Earth is a School, chosen for when I lived down the road in Bridport, Dorset. It didn't occur to me at the time but all these places are right on or even in the sea.
By No Means Equal had a view from the top of the Shevaroy Hills in South India. This was for when I lived in the village of Yercaud which is in those hills, albeit a less magnificent part of them. I found a photograph in a picture library and cropped it for the portrait style of the cover since it was originally in landscape mode. Here is the original.
You can't tell it's up on the hills because of the clouds but normally you can see down to the plains 5,000 feet below. This is what that looks like.
Following the logic of tracing back through places I have lived, the cover for the tentatively titled Surviving the End Times will have to be of somewhere in the town of Bath or nearby. I like this picture of the West Front of Bath Abbey which shows the angels ascending and descending Jacob's Ladder but I can't really see any connections to the theme of the book. Now, if only it were in ruins.....
Turner painted a picture of the Abbey which I include here for no other reason than that Turner painted a picture of the Abbey.
But these are both too fussy for a book cover so I will have to carry on looking. Since the book is only half-written there is no hurry.
Added note: See the comments below for an explanation for this picture.
My immediate thought was something by John Martin's such as the epic painting of the Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Day_of_His_Wrath - or Sodom and Gomorrah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_Sodom_and_Gomorrah.
ReplyDeleteBut probably *way* too fussy - and do not fit with the idea of "surviving"...
That is a wonderful painting but, as you say, no room for cover lines.
ReplyDeleteNot right for a book cover either, but another good John Martin painting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(painter)#/media/File:John_Martin_-_The_Eve_of_the_Deluge_-_WGA14146.jpg)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that picture but if you just took the left hand side with the comet seemingly heading towards the sun that could work for a cover. There's room in the sky for the title and author's name. He was a tremendous painter of Biblical catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteI think the painting NLR linked would be an excellent choice.
ReplyDeleteIt is very good. I've added the left hand side of it to the end of the article as I don't think I can put an image in the comments. I don't know how to anyway.
ReplyDeleteInclement weather is not easy to photograph, but I would suggest an individual walking through blustery rain with a background of subtle beauty. The individual represents the loneliness survivors are going to feel; the rain represents their sadness; the blustery weather, discomfort; the subtly beautiful background our ultimate hope. I believe Britain has an abundance of rain, blustery weather, subtle beauty and solitary walkers.
ReplyDelete"Britain has an abundance of rain, blustery weather, subtle beauty and solitary walkers." It does, and I experienced all the first three yesterday as the fourth. The famous painting of the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich would be good if it weren't so famous as to be almost a cliché.
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