I have a lot of books – I mean, a lot. But some of them are now, like me, showing their age, with cracked spines, dog-eared covers and well-thumbed pages. Not to mention the mismatched editions, and the dated, boring or just downright ugly covers ...

But my tatty but treasured books are part of the family, so I decided to show them some love by designing them brand new covers. Now they look beautiful, and grace my shelves anew.

  • W Somerset Maugham

  • Early Jilly Cooper

  • Damon Runyon

I started by using just my own designs, printed on wallpaper or giftwrap – reminiscent of those old library hardbacks with patterned covers – as a relatively cheap way to try out new ideas and typefaces (I love typefaces!). I then progressed to using Unsplash, and spent many hours researching free images to go perfectly with each book.

  • Thomas Hardy

  • Reay Tannahill

  • MM Kaye

As I don’t have to include bar codes and publisher details, my covers are less cluttered than the originals, though I usually retain the blurb. I make all the spines uniform and I even have my own colophon – the publisher logo on the spine – so all my books look smart on the shelf.

I’ve now completed over 180 covers – from Somerset Maugham to Jilly Cooper, MM Kaye to Emile Zola, Dorothy L Sayers to Aldous Huxley, Georgette Heyer to Thomas Hardy, Barbara Pym to Alice Hoffman. My next ambitious goal is to re-cover my entire set of very varied Agatha Christies ...

  • Aldous Huxley

  • Dorothy L Sayers

  • Emile Zola

  • Barbara Pym

  • Alison Lurie

  • Virginia Andrews