David Gee shares a few rejected book cover designs, without their titles or any other text. . . . Rick Poynor writes about how much originality is even possible in book design, and lands on a line that could apply to so many things: “The notion of continual reinvention as a worthwhile or attainable goal is particularly misplaced here…” . . . The Millions shares the opening lines of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, his new 928-page novel due in October. . . . John Self writes about authors with a gap between their best work and their best-known work (he prefers Joseph Heller’s Something Happened to Catch-22, etc.), and kicks off a spirited string of comments with further suggestions. . . . A list of 10 unconventional bookstores, most of which I feel the need to visit immediately. . . . The inspiring story of one man’s quest to publish a book with the permission of both Nick Hornby and Bruce Springsteen. (via Pete Lit) . . . An editor’s exchange with Stuart Dybek about what to name a Chicago housing project in one of Dybek’s stories. . . . Nicole Rudick talks to Paul Hornschemeier about his new graphic novel, Life with Mr. Dangerous. (“My mother reared me to be an eighty-year-old, gay man from England, so I think I had some identity issues.”) . . . Elizabeth Gumport, who has written some good book reviews herself, argues that perhaps book reviews shouldn’t exist.