I'm sure Chip Kidd knows how that feels

From the Times summer-books-by-women round-up, a concept which was flawed from the start to be sure:

Julie Metz’s PERFECTION is a visual standout for good reason: Ms. Metz designs book jackets. And she has given her all to the vibrant tulip on her memoir’s cover.

Really, Maslin? That's how you start a write-up of a memoir about a woman torn apart by infidelity only discovered after her husband's death? "Oh, but it looks pretty!" Then again, I should have been warned by the implication a couple paragraphs up that lady-books in summer all look the same:

This is the season when prettily designed books flood the market and compete for female readers. It’s a time when literary and lightweight books aimed at women become hard to tell apart. Their covers use standard imagery: sand, flowers, cake, feet, houses, pastel colors, the occasional Adirondack chair.

As opposed to the rest of the year, when no one cares about how their book covers look, because we're all wearing sackcloth and ashes and reading Philip Roth. I am not immune to the allure of a good cover -- in fact I write about them fairly frequently -- but in a piece with little enough room for each of the 11 books mentioned, that just seems like a very lazy approach.

(Chip Kidd: Graphic designer responsible for hundreds of covers among them JURASSIC PARK, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and the original cover of GEEK LOVE; also author of THE CHEESE MONKEYS, which might've made my college fiction list, and THE LEARNERS.)