Classic books get a chick-lit makeover

This article is from the April issue of Radar magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.

Leggy ladies, pink type, ubiquitous martini glasses—the clichés of chick-lit covers make Joseph Sullivan, editor of the Book Design Review, apoplectic. "They're just so repetitive and predictable and meaningless," he laments. "It drives me nuts." Unfortunately for Sullivan, chick lit's tropes are infiltrating other genres.

Last January, fans of literary lioness Alice Munro were shocked to discover that The View From Castle Rock had undergone a girly redesign. Classics like Lolita and Madame Bovary have endured similar face-lifts, and if the experts are to be believed, more are on the way. "This style is what sells," says St. Martin's Press creative director Steve Snider. "And our most important task is to get people to pick up the book. Think of it as dressing up a person to go to a bar."

Which got us wondering how some other stodgy favorites would look after a Carrie Bradshaw makeover ...

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The Bible
By God

Sullivan says, "Designers often crop out the head so the reader can imagine her own face on top of a model-skinny body." (In this case, Eve's.)