Penguin

There are book publishers and then there's Penguin. To commemorate the company's 60th anniversary(2006), Penguin Classics commissioned new hardcover editions of some of its Penguin Classics paperback line. What's really interesting about this is that the Penguin selected 5 internationally known designers to design the covers for the books.

Look at the dust jacket for Madame Bovary. If your eyes are immediately drawn to the shoes, well no wonder. This dust jacket was designed by Manolo Blahnik.

I think my favorite though is the jacket designed by fashion designer Paul Smith. He chose Lady Chatterly's Lover. The silk dust jacket has hand embroidery on it and the text is printed with purple ink. It's a bit difficult to see in the image, but I can just imagine how gorgeous it must be. Lately, I've become ga-ga over embroidery and I would love to see this in person.

All of the books were limited edition to a thousand copies.

Abebooks had a charity auction with these books in December 2006. Look at some of the winning bids. Way out of my price range.

And if that's not enough, look at these Penguin deck chairs. The chairs have the titles of some of the Penguin Classics. I found this on a site called Objects of Design.

They also have mugs, tea towels, bags and pencils.

"For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded. " Sir James M. Barrie