The Savage Detectives

Hi Audrey, In answer to your comment, here's a message from Paul Baggaley, Picador Publisher: 'I appreciate the sentiment behind this comment but I thought it was worth explaining why this is also a more complicated issue. Picador began as a paperback publisher, so many of the great writers the correspondent remembers (and which filled those spinners) were published on a licence for a limited period of time. So, sadly, as publishing changed and the old hardback publishers become subsumed as parts of big conglomerates, we weren’t able to renew these licences. I would love to reissue many of the authors we have previously published (including Richard Brautigan), but alas we just don’t have the rights. We do still have a great (but smaller!) list and certainly try to bring new readers to great writers with distinctive packaging. We have tried to be true to the spirit of the authors on the list with reissues which we hope are as distinctive as the original covers of the 70s and 80s. I particularly love David Pearson’s reinvention of Cormac McCarthy (using words rather than pictures to emphasise his unique voice) and Noma Bar’s new look for Don DeLillo (where he has tried to show the ambiguity inherent in communication by creating images with dual interpretations). But it is timely to look at some of the classic covers, so I've created a blog post with a selection of great Picador covers from authors both past and present: http://www.picador.com/Blogs/2012/1/Picador-Covers-from-the-Past-

I'll start by saying these are fine, elegant and often clever pieces of design - and in that respect conform to people's expectations of Picador. However, these are for the 40th anniversary? I'm old enough to have been around, buying book, when Picador was launched. I can remember that they had stand alone displays in book stores because of their size. A couple of days ago I revisited some of those early books that I'd bought in the early 70's, and which I still have on my shelves. You should look at your early catalogue, and how much better Picador covers looked against the competition. I feel an anniversary package should reflect your heritage. I'm not suggesting you should simply re-run old designs from 40 years ago, but I when I see these designs I don't get any sense of what Picador was about when first launched. These are very clever, very nice, very 2012. But they don't draw on your past, nor do they celebrate what made Picador a different imprint. I also am saddened there's no Richard Brautigan. I fear this is a list of books that make sense to the hipster marketing team who got given this job, and for whom the authors you published in your early days have no meaning or relevance. "Cormac McCarthy - like, The Road was an awesome movie, wunt it?" "Yeah, and the Bridget Jones film's on E4 every month."