The Butcherbird Stories, by A.A. Patric

Any book that arrives as a hardback these days, is an event.  Even Big Names are mostly published in paperback these days, and it’s rare to see time and effort put into book design and covers.  But The Butcherbird Stories, a collection of short stories by Miles Franklin winner A.S. Patrić, has elegant pale mint boards, thick enough to have the title and author’s name embossed into the front cover.  The dustcover design is by Peter Lo:  it features an image increasingly common in the Aussie backyard: a swimming pool.  But in this image there are ominous clouds on the horizon.  Those clouds also feature on the endpapers.

And then there’s the title…

Two Grey Butcherbirds perching on a suburban paling fence (Wikipedia*)

Butcherbirds are pretty to look at, but…

Butcherbirds […] get their name from their habit of impaling captured prey on a thorn, tree fork, or crevice…