MACHAS

Jonathan Calugi designs the New York Book Review’s cover

This weekend New York Times Book Review’s cover is dedicated to Nicholson Baker’s hilarious and extremely dirty “Book of Holes”.

Barker is adored by millions of fans worldwide for his dazzling descriptive powers and his latest work finds place in his biography in what has been defined as his The Sex Trilogy. “Book of Holes” in fact is a series of loosely linked vignettes set in a sexual theme park where the attractions include Masturboats and where one visitor could temporarily surrenders his right arm in exchange for a larger penis, while the arm enjoys a happy sex life of its own. Yes, exactly.

Now, how to represent this hyper sexualized world and still be able to put the magazine up on the newsstand shelf, possibly avoiding to have legions of enraged mothers calling out for sexual harassment?

“The idea was to create something where everything is constantly transforming into something else,” Jonathan says, “each element of the composition becomes the next one, in an ever-changing process where every element reinvents itself”. “I was really surprised when I was called to design the cover”, Jonathan continues, “I met Bachman [New York Book Review’s Art Director] in Milan where I was hosting a workshop. He was impressed with my works and even more when I gave him a little booklet about super heroes that I haven’t published yet – I was blown away!” 

See Jonathan’s portfolio

You can read more about Nicholson Baker’s review here.