Penguin

Penguin books always manage to come up with such original ideas. I love their recent letterpressed editions, but I think this latest range of classic books with blank covers for you to draw on yourself is daring and a clever idea. A book is always judged by its cover and as Penguin says this 'might be the stupidest thing we've ever done'.I think it's great. There are six titles ranging from Great Gatsby to The Waves, and the books are designed to hold ink, paint and glue.

You can see more information on the Penguin website. They are featuring submissions from the public as well as designs done by Bands. The above one was done by singer Beck and the one below by band Razorlight.

I like the two submissions below by Joanne Lee, and Heather Royston Webb.

What would you put on yours?

And once you've finished them how about housing them in this infinity bookcase (found via The design for mankind blog).

Hardbacks

If I could, I would replace all my paperbacks with nice old editions. I think the cover designs were so much nicer, and it's lovely to have nice editions of books you like. One of my favourite writers is definitely PG Wodehouse, especially the Blandings series of which I have these two.

Evelyn Waugh is another favourite. I bought this the other day on Portobello road, but can't read it until I get Men at Arms, the prequel!

I also got this. I haven't read any Priestley and have heard bad things but I have to admit I was drawn in by the London cover.

Ok I know these aren't hardbacks, but Penguin paperbacks are just so classic I couldn't resist these. I also love the new letterpressed editions they are doing at the moment.