The Guardian Unlimited Book section has a story on a new program of Penguin books, MyPenguin. The selection of novels sport ‘naked’ covers, enabling you to add your own designs. To promote the series Penguin has commissioned popular musicians to design the cover for a novel of their choice, and Beck, the American singer/songwriter, has tackled Le Grand Meaulnes. From the article:

Beck’s illustration, of the French novel Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier, follows his DIY art project for his latest album, The Information.

His book effort takes the form of a line drawing of two boys, perhaps the book’s two main characters, Le Grand Meaulnes and Francois Seurel. The title is picked out in magazine photograph cutouts of the faces of young men.

Beck said of the Penguin project, in which each paperback will come with a blank cover for readers to customise: “The idea is to provide something that calls for interactivity. Cover art and all the paraphernalia that comes with albums have always been really important to me. I’m one of the people who need a visual crutch for music.”

Here’s the result, along with Ryan Adams’s design for Dracula:

The original article is at the Guardian Unlimited: Musicians provide literary cover versions.