Daily Bookshot: Wrought Embossing

Wrought Embossing, originally uploaded by Robert Burdock.

If you’re as sensory as me when it comes to your reading, then, like me, you’ll appreciate any kind of embossing on your book covers. I love the stuff! Not only does it bring a touch of class to a book (which I’m not naive enough to know isn’t mainly for marketing purposes), but it also tantalises one’s sense of touch while reading, which in my book (pun intended) helps a little in enriching the reading experience.

So, I’m always on the lookout for a nicely embossed cover, and one of the more extravagant examples I’ve come across lately is the one found on the subject for today’s Daily Bookshot – Muriel Barbery’s international bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Gallic Books).

The embossing detail on this cover is elegance personified (just as well given that the word ‘elegance’ is in the title ). It not only beautifully replicates the graceful intricacies of well-crafted wrought iron work, but it also perfectly complements the main setting for this novel: ‘a grand Parisian apartment building on the Left Bank’.

I’ve yet to join one of the reputed 2.5 million who’ve already bought and supposedly consumed this book (along with Barbery’s debut novel The Gourmet (Gallic Books) which sits on my shelf beside this one) but if this deliciously embossed cover is anything to go by then I know I’m in for a real treat. I’ll let you know!

Gallic Books | June 2009 | £7.99 | PAPERBACK | 320 PP | ISBN: 9781906040185