Funny you should mention that. I especially did not want a fancy cover for my book. I grew up with the Cambridge Monographs on Physics series as a student and *loved* the look that they’d cultivated, and when I decided I wanted to do a D-branes book I sought them out for that reason above all others. There was one cover colour with white trim and black writing, but then each book in the series had its own cover*. Put together on the shelf gave a lovely look, overall. Rather like having a large block of CDs of 1960s Blue Note albums on your shelf, spines pointing out. Just looks great, in a minimalist way. So I wanted my book to continue in that tradition. The multi-volume texts by Weinberg and Polchinski are in that series too, and have special covers (maybe the only ones in that series that do), and maybe that is appropriate since they are especially powerful books by high-value authors, but that was not what I wanted at all. I wanted the minimal look. It is timeless and beautiful.

My other book projects (lurking at the back of my mind, and in scribbles here and there) will be very different though. Maybe you’ll see them one day.

Cheers,

-cvj

*For those who are in the field and might remember them or have them to hand, there’s a lovely inside-ish bit of cleverness about the two volume of Green, Schwarz, and Witten that not many people seem to have noticed. It is also in the colour scheme I mentioned (white trim, black writing, main colour), and the principal colour for these books is green. Now look again at the names of the authors.

That’s not to say my opinion stops there, because of course it’s the actual content that counts. But as I’m not wholly aware of the publishing process, how much more difficult is it to put something pretty (a highly subjective adjective, obviously) on the cover?

I know a handful of biologists and a psychologist (academics themselves), and I love perusing their bookshelves if ever I’m left alone in their offices because they more often than not, are adorned with fantastic representations of the subject matter. But when it comes to physics or mathematics the fiducial appearance is always (to me) a foreboding one of monotone covers with block lettered text in black or white.

I know that this argument seems some what facetious; and I’ll admit that it is, partly. Really, I’m just curious as to what you, Clifford, might think given that you’ve actually published a textbook.

-cvj