Would you please, Please, PLEASE include a link on your webpage giving the names of the animals on the covers of your Nutshell series books? Sometimes you can find out by reading the trademark info on the inside cover, but not always. BTW - Why isn't it information ever mentioned plainly in the books themselves? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's ever seen a Nutshell Book cover and not known what the animal portrayed was! In particular, your Windows Annoyances book has one of the strangest looking beasts I've ever seen. It looks like a frog (almost) with tadpoles hatching out of it's back - Very Strange!

Thanks also for all of your wonderful books - they really are many cuts above all others on the market!

Dear Evan:

Your idea for listing the animals on our covers on the web site is a very good one, one that we will consider. We know that our readers dote on these animals and we appreciate it.

I should mention to you, however, that the animals are described in the back of the books in the Colophon. The Colophon can be found just behind the index, under the "About the Author" section in most books.

For example, the toad on Windows Annoyances is the Surinam Toad (Pipa Pipa). It indeed hatches tadpoles from sacs on its back. Not my cup of tea, but it is a striking image, and it doesn't cause revulsion, I'm told, among amphibians.

Edie Freeman, O'Reilly's Creative Director, has created these covers since their inception. She reads the reports about the book, its audience, and its topic, and she picks a woodcut (usually) of an animal that she finds appropriate. The connection between the Surinam Toad and annoyances is pretty clear, but for some other books, the connection is a little more obscure. (My favorite lately, by the way, is the pig on Stopping Spam.) Sometimes a review of the Colophon can reveal the characteristics that led Edie to choose a particular animal.

Good luck hunting,

Frank Willison
Editor-in-Chief, Technical Publishing

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