Binding: Lester Capon for ‘Animal’s People’ by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster), Designer Bookbinders was founded over 50 years ago to promote the craft of fine bookbinding.
Since 1991 their members have been creating beautiful unique bindings for the 6 shortlisted novels for Booker Prize.
Here’s how it works:
“The binder…has only four to five weeks to read, design and bind their book (with a container). The books must be ready in time for the night of the final prize announcement, when each bound novel is presented to its author at the famous ‘Booker dinner’.”
Wouldn’t it be great if we had something similar for our National Book Award?
Here are this years bindings which are on display at the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum through January 2008:
Binding: Rachel Ward-Sale for ‘Darkmans’ by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
Binding: Faith Shannon for ‘The Gathering’ by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape), 
Binding : Stephen Conway for ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton) 
Binding: Christopher Shaw for ‘Mister Pip’ by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
Binding: Peter Jones for ‘On Chesil Beach’ by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)