After a very half-assed attempt at reading Chip Kidd's novel "The Cheese Monkeys", I am going to have to put the book back on the shelf where it belongs. The book is beautifully designed with quirky typography and surprising layouts but the first 50 pages dragged and were filled with entirely too much dialogue. Sadly, the plot is what hooked me into getting this book - this narrative is a fictional account of Kidd's experiences in art school studying under a design guru who he ultimately breaks with. Best quote from the book: "Good is dead". Indeed. Kidd did not design his own novel, although he has designed plenty of other bestsellers for Knopf, including titles by David Sedaris, Cormac McCarthy, Oliver Sacks and others. Some writers who sign contracts with Knopf even stipulate in their contracts that Kidd must design their book covers. Veronique Vienne's catalog on Kidd's work provides a wonderful essay on his development as a designer, his fascination with Batman and comics, and talks also about trends in book design - the way that one of Kidd's colleagues pioneered the use of photography on book covers for works of fiction - grounding these works in a more realistic experience, vs. using illustration to brand a book.