The books that I buy to read on my iPad aren't because of their cover. I buy those books because I've heard about them somewhere and became interested in reading them. Another feature I like about getting books to read on my iPad is that I can download a sample of them and that way I won't forget to maybe buy them in the future, because the sample sits there on the virtual bookshelf along with the books that I've purchased, so I won't forget about them. This is handy because it curbs my need to buy a book impulsively. The cover art for these iBooks rarely influences whether or not I purchase the book. ++
Here are some books that I've experienced in the tactile world of books and a few thoughts tagging along on each one.
I bought 48 Laws of Power because I had heard about how kick ass it was from somewhere, on a tv show, I think. I bought it in paperback and read 1/2 of it then kept it around for many years because it was worth keeping due to content and the bright orange glossy cover, but I just let it go when I moved a few years back.
I bought Glam-orama from a discount table at a Books-a-Million store about 12 years ago. The cover was a big influence. It was a shiny black hardcover book with celebrities' faces all over it with a white dustcover with the different, clean, hip fonts and different size circles cut out, as windows to the celebrities' faces underneath. I'd never seen a book that used the dustcover in such a way and I thought it looked like something I'd like to carry around and read, for novelty sake. I did read it all, and I liked it.
Valley of the Dolls was a book that I'd bought because I'd read that it was about glamorous, sexy women taking pills and boozing it up and as a teenager that kind of story was worth reading for me. I loved the glossy, girly cover. It's pink, it's bold and it's pretty iconic.
White Teeth was another book that I'd picked up at a Books-a-Million discount table. I never did end up reading it. I bought it just because of the cover. It was a hardcover book with a very sort of snowy white, hefty tactile paper dustcover with the author's name in gold metallic and a washed out title in black. I think subliminally the symmetry of the title and its 5 letters per line are representative of teeth and to make the dustcover white and the print in black seems almost like the imagery of an xray or a film negative. I like the simple stamp above the authors name and the simple "a novel" between the title. Aesthetically it just seemed to fit my style at the time. An aside to this... I joined a memoir writing workshop a couple years after I'd bought this book (2004, maybe) and after I'd read to the group my memoir, some woman told me to read the book White Teeth; that my writing style was like Zadie Smith's.
The Baby-Sitters Club. I was big into the Sweet Valley, and TBSC books when I was a pre-teen. I read all of them. TBSC always had fun covers. I didn't know any girls that dressed like the ones on the cover but it helped with bringing the characters to life. I was already obsessed with the story so to have that extra picture of the characters was pretty awesome for my kid self. They didn't give us anything else except the text and the cover art, but if there were other TBSC products to buy or to watch on tv, I'm sure us young fans would've consumed them all. There were also some other series I used to read... Scary Stories, Goosebumps and a few others, I can't recall right now. Cover art, symbols and graphics is important to children and teen's minds and imagination, I know; though I'm not sure that kids need that through a printed book, perhaps an electronic version will eventually become more commonplace and feel the same to those kids as tactile books did to my generation.
Ishmael is THE ONLY book EVER that someone loaned to me that I really, really enjoyed. This guy must be a very intuitive person, because he loaned the book to the right person. It was perfect for the time and place that I was in my life, circa 2006. This is the paperback cover of it, the same as the copy that I read. It gives nothing away of the story inside but it speaks to the serenity and peaceful, understated nature. The cover doesn't need to make a show of things. It represents well the feel of the story which is what this book impresses you with, its sentiment.
To this day, I remember this imagery. Something about this vibrant big guy and this big blue ox towering over and trampling down anywhere they went wandering was so outstanding to me. Again, this speaks to how significant I feel that visuals are to children's stories. I can't even remember what these two went around doing together, but they obviously did whatever they wanted to, and maybe that is what I found memorable and amusing about the imagery, their freedom and audacity. The cover art and illustrating of this story, no matter how many times it is redone, is usually pretty cool in my eyes so long as it captures that spirit and doesn't change their character.
So, there is some of my book cover experience. Maybe not the most significant of my experiences but it's what came to mind, right off the top of my head. I don't think that book cover art is very important to me anymore in influencing my purchases, but I do appreciate it. Sometimes I see an art book or photography or coffee table book that is very outstanding as far as covers go and I feel that for some people who like keeping books around those are the ones that could deserve semi-permanent placement in a home or collection, but really it's all just mass marketed stuff today and disposable and not of any real significance.
++ A few extra things... I don't currently read books anymore, because I'd rather do anything else. I only read on my iPad when I'm on a long car ride or sitting in a waiting room. When I buy a tactile, actual book now, I don't buy it for the cover, I go online and buy the cheapest copy that I can find.
