Book Covers

I absolutely judge books by their covers. This is especially true of non-fiction, but fiction as well. A cool cover is inviting and eye-catching! I like to point out interesting covers to library patrons when I'm doing readers advisory, too.  There's a fun web site called The Book Cover Archive, which I love to browse through.

Here are some of my favorite book covers.

And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture
by Bill Wasik
2009

The way each word repeats indicates the number of times the story is told.  Simple, but eye-catching.

Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood
by Jennifer Traig
2004

You can just picture someone with OCD taking a bag of M&Ms and putting them in careful rows by color.  It illustrates the book's topic really well.

In Defense of English Cooking
by George Orwell
(Essay in a collection called "Such, such were the joys & other essays")
1989

I, for one, like English cooking.  Make me some mushy peas any day! I have to admit that the English breakfast shown here is not so appetizing, though - especially the lower picture where they've blurred as if it were just one big pile of beans and eggs and stuff.  I still like the cover.

Our Lady of the Forest: A Novel
by David Guterson
2003

This is a book about a woman who sees the Virgin Mary.  The cover, with it's close up of what I would assume represents the Virgin Mary, gives you the impression of someone watching over you.  She's looking down, and she's really close.  Religion aside, it's beautiful.

Raising the Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation
by Elizabeth Beckwith
2009

Ha ha ha!  That's just funny.  The title is hilarious, and the people have that retro "perfect" look.  The squeaky-clean mother and daughter just don't match up with the guilt and manipulation part of the title, which is hilarious!!

The Revolution of Little Girls: A Novel
by Blanche McCrary Boyd
1991

I have not read this book, but the cover is creepy.  The words form an X over her, and she's shown as a negative.  Does she die in the book?  I don't know, but I would pick this off the shelf in a minute to find out.

The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: a Novel
by Jerome Charyn
2010

Again, I haven't read this, but the cover indicates that Emily Dickinson had a secret life that was somehow scandalous.  If her purple skirt were solid, she would have that late-1800s prude look.  Instead, we see a black silhouette that implies something outrageous or even indecent.