Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life
by Paul Quarrington (Greystone Books)
Cover design by Heather Pringle

Perhaps it’s the economy, with its dour sermons of doom, but when I go into a bookstore these days, I’m far more attracted to colourful, flirty covers than to sombre, emotional ones. (I bought Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom in hardcover because I loved the juicy life in the design.) The liveliness of this particular cover is so fitting for Paul Quarrington’s final book, about music, memory, and living life to the fullest while facing death head-on. It enticed me the moment I saw it: it’s assured, lively, and highly polished. As the ­design clearly attests, the book is a celebration, not a dirge. “ Ingrid Paulson, a freelance book designer