Book cover frustration

[kev67]

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I have to say, a really nice cover is more likely to make me buy a particular book. I really like the Penguin's clothbound classics (http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/pubsetpages/clothboundclassics/) but I am frustrated that the cover I like best is for Great Expectations, which I have recently read. Then I am frustrated that while some of the Penguin's English Classics come in clothbound format, those I particularly want to read only come in paperback. (linky (http://www.penguinenglishlibrary.com/#)). For example, I like the cover of Far From the Madding Crowd, but it is only in paperback it seems. Perhaps Penguin will bring out a clothbound version later. Meanwhile, I do not especially Penguin's cover for David Copperfield, which is also on my reading list, but I do like the Vintage Book books cover. I like the paper too. It has an old-fashioned quality about it. I saw a copy in the local bookshop but it seems to be for display purposes only and difficult to get hold of.

http://bks6.books.google.co.uk/books?id=rCkthLk_df0C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&imgtk=AFLRE72FWKF3EhZP_9yg_wqS8LtOVQscgPZwCS1jk8sZ 8ew50H07mWtRSGLBfPoP3z_L1j_AEOanBW0BRhzrla6JTAFP_o pW4b4T_4kINmBeQtL3EOVnrxs8UtlYK3sLvYhUwjnel-Ol

[Charles Darnay]

I have honestly never had this problem. I can appreciate a good cover sure, but it falls towards the bottom of my list of things I'm looking at when getting editions of books. When it comes to the paratext, I look for solid notes, a good introduction (if it is that type of book), the layout &c.
For example, I really like the Penguin Classics (for their aesthetics), but have settled for other editions when Penguin was not available.

[kev67]

In the past I've not normally been too swayed by the cover. I used to always think hardbacks were a waste of money because it's the content that mattered. Dusty, old hardbacks that must have been sitting on a shelf for decades never appealed to me much when I was a kid. Box-sets of old leather bound classics never really did it for me neither. They just looked old-fashioned and somehow wrong. I do like those Coralie Bickfield-Smith designs, but they look much better as hardbacks than as paperbacks. I am pondering buying the Dickens box-set, but I am peeved David Copperfield is not included.

The covers of Tom Holland's history books are particularly striking. I was definitely influenced by the cover when I bought that. It was a cracking book though.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTmaeZ6AatPZVbPfJJ8W6_0P1tQ1fxUS YVhuLC3Q_XAUfnxjcm7_xA92MGc

However this cover of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go made me resolve never to read it. Konwing vaguely what it was about, I found the picture of a young woman in a medical uniform chilling.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbOhjkOtTyY/TZYsSHFXHZI/AAAAAAAAAL0/lRLIrJWnz9M/s1600/never2.jpg

[Charles Darnay]

I can concede that hardcovers are typically nicer than paperbacks. My problem with them is (a) as you mention, the cost, and (b) the space. I have always had a limited amount of bookshelf space, and you can fit more paperbacks on a shelf than hardcover.

I have always loved Murakami's book covers, such as:

http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/the_windup_bird_chronicle.large.jpg

[kiki1982]

Nope, don't have that problem. I rarely buy hardcovers, because I don't want to spend the money on them. New that is. If they are the same price in a second hand store, I'll go for a hardcover, because it's luxury.

I personally have preferences for covers, in terms of design: empty and only the title and author's name or with an imaginative design or the new ones with photos or I like the simple Penguin paperbacks with the paintings on them. Gives me something nice to look at.

I used to go to a bookfare once a year (not anymore now I have moved to Germany. My book budget would be about as big as what it costs me to get there) and I mainly used to look at titles. If that appealed to me, I'd have a read on the back. Aside from favourite authors.
Cover didn't bother me much, bnot even when faced with a lot of books. If I was really having a hard time choosing, that would be the very very very last option to decide which one to get. And that would come after even 'Eenie meenie miny moe'. I've always thought that brings out what I really want. :D I think in all the years I have been buying books, I've only like bought one or two based on the cover.

[kev67]

Kiki, sure you wouldn't like a copy of this on your bookshelf?

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/pubsetpages/clothboundclassics/images/big/jane_eyre_H.jpg

[kiki1982]

I know they are nice, to hold too, but I'll only buy one of those if it fulills at least one of the following three criteria:

1. It is cheaper than or as expensive as a new paperback
2. It is a special edition with a reprint of an old edition (i.e. with the original illustrations), first/orthographed edition or otherwise special
3. It is a second hand book (then it probably fulfills criterion No. 1).

Otherwise not, I'm afraid.

To me, the book is merely a text. There is no reason why it should be more expensive if it has got no more special features than the one next to it.

[Pantagruel]

Obviously covers don't matter very much, but I still tend to go for the Oxford World's Classics whenever I can. They have a nice, clean, modern design and use paintings or other artwork as cover illustrations, which I like because they're intersesting in their own right. Kafka's covers, for example, are taken from doodles he'd scribbled in the margins of his university notebooks. However, what's more important is that they all have a decent introduction and notes.

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/images/en_US/covers/large/9780199238552_450.jpg

On the other hand, I despise the tacky, embossed covers of Cormac McCarthy's books with their ridiculous media quotes taking up half of the space. I'd buy them, but only if I had no other choice.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51STTe8FcaL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-66,22_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg

[Gareth Heard]

To me, buying a book based on the cover alone (rather than the content alone) seems sensible only if you intend to never open the book. If you're choosing between two editions of the same book, however, that's a different thing altogether; into which enters our old friend and foe money.

Personally I buy books to read them, rather than admire them on a shelf, though I do, in my weaker moments, like to admire them on a shelf. I also see reading as something that is as enjoyable as it is affordable, whereas if I were to obtain only decorative hardbacks (especially newly designed reprints) then this would no longer be the case.

[qimissung]

I usually buy a book because I am interested in the content of the book. Beyond that, if there is a choice, I will consider the cover, the stock used to print it, the type, and the prologue, and choose the one that is most aesthetically pleasing to me based on that criteria. I always get paperbacks, though. They are smaller and lighter and easier to read lying down, and I almost always read lying down.

I enjoy the hardbacks I get from the public library, I just don't choose to buy hardcovers. They are larger and so much more expensive.

I found this blog which compares book covers from books published in the United States and the United Kingdom. It puts them side by side, then critiques them. Very interesting.


http://www.themillions.com/2012/02/judging-books-by-their-covers-u-s-vs-u-k-3.html

[free]

kev67 , I like the Jane Eyre cover. Looks like herbarium. :smilewinkgrin:

[cacian]

I agree book covers do play a role in attracting the buyer/reader.
I mean one walks into a bookshop and it is topped with books and so one needs a bit of help and the tiles are usually not as visible as the book covers.
I find Terry Pratchett
I shall wear midnight visually very colourful.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3b/I_Shall_Wear_Midnight.jpg/185px-I_Shall_Wear_Midnight.jpg

I compare book covers as adverts for books.

[Lokasenna]

I'm motivated entirely by the contents of the volume and the price. A nice cover is a bonus, but that's all. If I'm getting a cheap paperback of something and there is, say, no difference in price between the Penguin and Oxford editions, then I might be motivated by the pleasingness of the cover, but that's the only time it would effect my decision.

[kev67]

I went into Waterstones this morning. The Penguin clothbound classics cost £14.99. I noticed the Collector's Library of Wuthering Heights cost £7.99. These a small hardbacks. Collector's Library books are quite nice to look at, but the text is a bit small. I read one before, Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species. Wuthering Heights is on my to-read list. The clothbound classic is also very attractive, but I don't know whether I like Emily Brontë's writing yet.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSiEnPaKoRDTBKMXW0aI0BLLeVbSchPq 71lcu7-EPxqEEBBBEYf

The Vintage Classics version of David Copperfield cost £5.99, and I notice I can order most of Dickens' best books in similar covers via various on-line shops. The paper gives it an odd, old-fashioned feel. I thinks it's because the edges are not aligned.

That copy of David Copperfield was on a display shelf labelled "Lauren's favourites", who is presumably an employee of Waterstones. I noticed another of her favourites was Elizabeth Gaskel's North and South. This sounds like a very interesting book, but the only Gaskel book in the Penguin Clothbound Classics range is Cranford, which is very pleasant to look at but does not sound so interesting.

[Clovis]

I don't know if many of you still have a copy of Wolfe 'Man in Full' on your shelves, but on the books actual cover surface, under the book cover, there is a caricature picture of the Atlanta real estate tycoon, I forget his name now cause it's been so long since I'd read it. Just so you know; the only reason that I actually know this is because my copy didn't have an bookcover at all.

I'll feel like a jackarse only if it's on the back of the 'bookcover' proper. :rolleyes5:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/39/Tommywolfie.jpg/200px-Tommywolfie.jpg

[kiki1982]

I noticed the Collector's Library of Wuthering Heights cost £7.99. These a small hardbacks. Collector's Library books are quite nice to look at, but the text is a bit small. I read one before, Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species. Wuthering Heights is on my to-read list. The clothbound classic is also very attractive, but I don't know whether I like Emily Brontë's writing yet.

Well, you've only got one chance to like it ;). Apart from her juvenelia, then.

That was the most mesmerising novel I have read. Fluent writing, instantly captures your attention and bewilderment. It's a lot less 'quoty' than Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre, and actually, if I am honest, much more original in its makeup than her sister's. Though I like Jane Eyre very very much for its discerning characterisation, Emily was clearly the better writer and was much less tied to the fact she was Victorian.

[Humming Bee]

I rather take books from library than buy them so I don't really care about the cover (especially that most of books have their covers hidden under protective jackets made of undefined-brown paper). Also, I used to go to library with a list of a few books to get, so importance of covers totally falls off.
However, if I decide to buy a book, I prefer something better looking unless the difference of prices is overwhelming.

Still there're some covers that are unforgivable mistakes and sins against literature. Like that one:
http://oi48.tinypic.com/9gipnl.jpg

[dfloyd]

published by The Limited Editions Club. limitededitionsclub.com
300 copies printed and illustrated by Balthus. Sells for $4500.

[kev67]

published by The Limited Editions Club. limitededitionsclub.com
300 copies printed and illustrated by Balthus. Sells for $4500.

$4500 for that! You'd expect it to have been inscribed by monks on vellum and illustrated with gold leaf for that price. The drawings are not even that great IMO.

[dfloyd]

Sidney Shiff, the publisher of the LEC, passed away and his widow is selling the few remaining LECs left in inventory. The LEC which has been publishing finely printed books since 1929 will be in business no more.

Some of the LEC books demand very high prices: James Joyce's Ulysses, signed by Joyce and the illustrator, Henri Matisse, recently sold for $23.000.

These prices are well beyond my financial capability, but it is obvious you know little about the Fine Press market so if I were you, I wouldn't express such strong opinions about something you know very little about.

[kiki1982]

I appreciate that you are a book collector, Dfloyd, but collectors' items like the one you've listed here (and all those you have mentioned in the past) are not for reading, as we are trying to look for here, but for putting on the shelf and touching them with gloves on. Preferably not touch them at all, even. God forbid there would come a chink in the pages or a bit of a scratch (additional to the ones that were there when you bought it) on the cover. It would reduce its value.

Wear and tear of reading habts is certainly a no-no.

This is not what most of us are after.

[TheFifthElement]

I think that one of the (rare) positive side effects of the e-book 'revolution' is that publishing houses are making far more effort to produce books that are aesthetically pleasing. I am increasingly drawn to these beautiful articles - after all, aside from reading it I will be displaying it in my collection, so the prettier it is the better. That being said, I also have a bit of a penchant for secondhand books, which arises out of the worn feel of the paper, the smell, and the sense of history leached into the pages. Sometimes you find things in them, like enigmatic notes or used train tickets or articles snipped from newspapers, and that's fun too. The other week, I picked up Jim Crace's Being Dead in the library, and on the inside, just underneath the title, someone had written 'very, very depressing' in pencil, which made me smile. You lose these things with e-books.

So I do consider how the book appears, and if it's a classic I tend now to look for one which I think will last so often I'm going for hardbacks (not always new). I too love the Penguin clothbound classics, and Virago (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virago-Modern-Classics-Special-Editions/lm/R1FOSG21RXVD5) have produced some lovely books recently. I'm also liking the quality you get from the smaller presses, like Persephone books (http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/) who have adopted a classical grey backed book with distinctive end papers (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorian-Chaise-longue-Marghanita-Laski/dp/0953478041/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349006419&sr=1-17) and the quality of the print is excellent.

[kev67]

Sidney Shiff, the publisher of the LEC, passed away and his widow is selling the few remaining LECs left in inventory. The LEC which has been publishing finely printed books since 1929 will be in business no more.

Some of the LEC books demand very high prices: James Joyce's Ulysses, signed by Joyce and the illustrator, Henri Matisse, recently sold for $23.000.

These prices are well beyond my financial capability, but it is obvious you know little about the Fine Press market so if I were you, I wouldn't express such strong opinions about something you know very little about.

No offense intended.

[kev67]

I think that one of the (rare) positive side effects of the e-book 'revolution' is that publishing houses are making far more effort to produce books that are aesthetically pleasing.

I was thinking something along these lines myself. I listened to an interview of Roger Daltry on the radio a while back. He partly blamed CDs for the decline of the music industry because the sleeves were not as interesting as those on LPs. I suppose he had a point. If CD sleeves had been as nicer to hold and look at, customers may have less willing to abandon them in favour of music downloads (although probably not).

[Chris1991]

I like Collins Classics simple yet beautiful covers one of my fav covers is this one

http://www.eurocrime.co.uk/reviews/MotAoD.jpg