As ever, there were very few spines that stuck in our memories this year. Sure, there were one or two that evolved what others have done in previous years and added a nice twist or two (See Darren Shan and Ciara Geraghty elsewhere on this site) but yet again the overwhelming evidence is that publishers still do not take this aspect of their packaging seriously (despite it being the most visible presence most of these books will ever have in a bookshop).

Elegant. Simple. Different.

Here is a spine that kicks the asses of the books unfortunate enough to be placed around it on a bookshelf.

Just look at it.

It shouts at you.

The publishers have very wisely focused everything on the unusual title.

The difficult author name (Wu Ming) isn’t going to help anybody so it has been kept out of the way.

Instead, they have bought the cover image of a man’s face to the fore. This makes eminent sense as it adds a human dimension to the obscure title. Also, the image is cropped neatly so that we see just one eye peaking from round the corner of the spine. It communicates far more than one might expect. He looks…dangerous.

This is a spine that you want to pick off the shelf — just to learn more about it.

Job done.