Dazzlingly good. This cover is fresh, eye-catching and interesting. The publishers were given a fantastic head start by the title (which we love). It at once explains its core subject matter yet at the same time, hints at the quirky and humorous tone of voice of the story. The Designers have understood this and further realised that the title does so much of the communication work, all they have to do is make it leap off the page. And what better way to do that than repeat it six times on the front cover in bright flourescent colours?! It sounds crass but it works beautifully. Sure, the cover is not quite as cool as a Damien Hirst dot painting and it also sits firmly within the ‘Graphics and Title Combo’ approach currently used for Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’ and Paul Murray’s ‘Skippy Dies’ but it still works really hard. They even managed to make the author’s ridiculous name look OK and neatly included his previous work without spoiling the overall image. The only thing we can’t get past is the inclusion of the dreaded words “A novel”. (Regular readers will know, we absolutely hate this on covers because it points to all sorts of short-comings in the title and design process which we won’t go into here…) On this occasion we can’t forgive it because it shows a distinct lack of balls on the part of the publisher. Are they really that worried about being sued for misrepresentation? Isn’t the whole damn point of the title to play with our stereotypes and pre-conceptions? Isn’t that the fun, irony and humour of it all? So why be so pathetic as to give away the game before I even read a page?