Book Banners

Click on any of the custom-designed banners to get to a book review.

Each of these banners have been custom-designed to fit the review, and each one incorporates an element of the book cover design combined with one of M. Bijman or M.F. O’Brien’s photos, free photos from pexels.com, or just the cover element, or just a photo. The photos are chosen to fit both the style and palette of the cover design and the atmosphere of the book. As such, each banner is like a little “precursor” to the review. Sometimes the photo is enough to give a foretaste of the feel of the book.

The setting is the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles – it fits the character.
There’s Daniel Craig, in the water, looking implacable. So this must be about Bond.
One in a series of four SF novels – we’ve had three, waiting for no. 4.
Very fuzzy family memories and very confused thoughts.
Strange forest and a strange search for a missing woman.
Part of this is my painting of a lake, part of it is the cover of the novel about a holiday home on an island off the coast of Finland.
This old dude has the attitude of a teenager, now more than ever. But it looks like he’s about to ride straight into the traffic…
In the mood for some poetical social critique and humour? Here you go then. (This bus in the pic is in Vancouver, BC.)
This book has one key element – snow – and one key clue – a guitar. More than this would spoil the plot.
A harsh landscape (in this case a painting of it) with a couple of horses. Pretty much the environment of famous cowboy Wyatt Earp, written in Larry McMurtry’s famous spare style.
Scene of a chilly morning in a Nordic country – and a cold-hearted killer for hire. What’s not to love?
What’s the future of book publishing? Can you grow a forest for it now?
There is something large and weird stalking Paris, France.
There is something large and weird stalking Paris, France.
The descriptions of food are way better than the rest of the novel.
Shostakovich is looking depressed. Russian morbidity - to be expected?
Shostakovich is looking depressed. Russian melancholy – to be expected?
Shacks, shanty-towns, misery and magic.
Shacks, shanty-towns, misery and magic.
Cancer = crab = Krebs (German). Cold volcanic-sand beach, home for a red-hot crab.

 

 

 

Blue teddy-bears can be terrible.
Blue teddy-bears can be terrible.
Tulip fever, orchid fever, futures market trading, madness, art, etc.
The ghost of a small child amongst the shadows of the forest. Lots of ghosts in this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dissolute youth goes to Paris to find himself. How boring can it get?
Dissolute youth goes to Paris to find himself. How boring can it get?
Sjón. Seriously distracting. ‘Nuff said.
Sjón. Seriously distracting. ‘Nuff said.

 

A year in books
One of the books involved an “ice child”, therefore the iconic Russian illustration and a photo of Canadian woods in winter.
Murder, corruption and very fine Chinese poetry.

 

 

 

 

20 B Breytenbach2
A South African landscape for a South African author.
19.1 Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins being blown about in a photo of a wintry suburban street. Wintry, because Mary Poppins was a pretty cold character.
18 The Goldfinch
A bridge that looks like bars of a cage because the book is about a painting of a caged goldfinch.
16 WS Star Wars
A storm trooper superimposed on a photo of a bridge in a local park because the book is William Shakespeare’s Star Wars. Not the bridge of a starship.
21 Day of the Oprichnik
Oprichniks = Russia = photo of Moscow.
16 World of Trouble
Book about the end of the world – naturally needs a photo of Mount St. Helens which exploded catastrophically.
16 The city and the city
Which city? Vancouver, Canada, of course.
15 Summer books for road trips
Summer books review requires photo of cool water and hot feet.
14 The island of Wings
The ship from the cover of an 18th century island story fitted into a shot of a rock formation on the British coast.
13 Wonderland
All nasty things lurk in this book and perhaps along that dark forest path in the photo…
13 The High Mountains
It’s about Portugal, slavery, cars, not so much mountains – and apes.
14 An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
It’s the words of an astronaut, who believes that the skills he learned can be applied in everyday life. So why not put him on a ski slope in his space suit?
12 T Pratchett J Barnes
Two writers who write about death, and do so very well.

 

 

 

Hercule Poirot has always been my favourite detective. At times I have to remind myself that Agatha Christie invented him.
The futuristic looking font and multiple planets should give you an idea what this one is about.
12 Two years_Rushdie
The cover was minimalist with a lightning flash and a little yellow figure. So that’s how I kept it. Though the book was by no means minimalist, rather the opposite.
14_The Gods of Tango
Tango! Passion! Drama! Therefore storm clouds and a palette of primary colours. Elementary, as Sherlock Holmes said.
20 Chinese novels
The woman sleeping is from the novel “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” one of the books I review in this essay.
19 Worst person ever
Well, the character gets sick from nuts. The writer may be nuts. And as for liking the novel – oh….nuts.
17.S.
That’s it. “S”. That’s the whole thing.
17 Rhino Ranch
Closest I could get to a photo of farm animals.
17 Doris Lessing
God-forsaken farm scene from South Africa for a discussion of her novels as an exile.
15 Erotic romances
Sweltering clouds = erotica, not to press too fine a point.
15 Alice Munro
The lady is famous, so her famous face is all over the banner.
The book is about the roots that bind people to their homeland, so the photo is of tangled roots. The silhouette is of the “Oscar” in the title.
10 the piano maker
One of my favourites: the main character in the book, with her bags, cut from the cover and placed looking towards a church on the banks of the Coquitlam River. She did go to live in a church in the book.
10 Not a lot going on
As the theme song goes in “Corner Gas”, “there’s not a lot going on”, nor in the flat prairie in the photo.
10 Hausfrau
Foreign, feminine, a bit freaky – like these waxy-looking and impossibly perfect lilies.
9 The Last Policeman
Just guess how this novel ended.
8 Unforgettable image
An iconic black and white photo fitted onto black and white scenery.
8 This Census-Taker
It’s all about words, like in the photo of this monument in Paris. The image of the man is one of the illustrations in the book.
7 Modernised Fables
It’s about fables – and what is more typical than Red Riding Hood, but set against a dramatic winter wood.
7 Furiously happy4
The raccoon in the story looks a bit crazy. So too thinks the other furry creature in this photo.
This is our street in winter. But the man in the coat is Reve’s depressed protagonist. Depressed, yes – boring, never.
7 Culinary mysteries
Creepy font for a book about food and murder.
6 Wolf Winter2
This was a real wolf photographed at a wolf sanctuary. Sad.
6 The Family Fang
Chinese fretwork window screens at the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden in Vancouver, and posed in that room, the family Fang of the book.
3 TERRY PRATCHETT
An illustration of one of Terry Pratchett’s most famous characters, Death, but in a setting with matching colours, the waterfront of Vancouver on a misty evening.
3 Marwencol
One of Mark Hogancamp’s little figures, re-positioned in a snowy landscape in BC, Canada.
2 Pioneer Girl2
Laura Ingalls Wilder from the cover of the book, superimposed on a background of sunlit trees.
8 Happy birthday to The Bard
The Bard is William Shakespeare. ‘Nuff said.
6 Hennie Aucamp
Aucamp wrote about extremes – so it is a picture of contrasts.
5 the white road
A white header for a book about porcelain.
9 The Buried Giant
The tree from Ishiguro’s book cover combined with some actual trees from London’s Hyde Park.
1 Embassytown
A Sci-Fi city and a real city, Vancouver.
2 amnesia
It’s about forgetting – so the photo fades out.
3 MaddAddam
A complicated post-apocalyptic trilogy so the picture is of tangled branches that look pretty dead.
5 Umbrella
An umbrella would’ve been too obvious.
9 Vienna Nocturne
An attempt to show the theme of music in the novel.
11 Go Set A Watchman
It may be a depressing novel about racism, but there is a hopeful message, like a chink of rainbow.
Little kid in the snow with a parent waiting to see if he will break his neck on the slopes, or turn into a champion. Pretty much what happens in the novel.
The main character is told “Never go to London”. Here’s the London Eye in all its night-time glory. Why shouldn’t he go? It’s so glam!

 
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