Being a visual person, and one who loves good design (subjective though that term may be...) I have often found that I will be attracted to a book by that first glance...something that pulls me in and makes me walk straight over to the book on the shelf. Something that makes me pick that book up and read the synopsis and reviews, and sometimes the first few pages to find out if the story contained within could live up to that fabulous cover.
On the other hand, there are books that I see that just hold no interest for me, and occasionally some that just plain turn me off. (I must admit, if its a truly over-the-top atrocious cover, I will often peek, pulled in by the glaring ugliness/weirdness/garishness. It's like how you have to look at that dead squirrel by the roadside. Eeew, but...)
So where am I going with this? Back in time, for starters.
Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I would go to the library and take out a stack 14, 15, 16 books high and read them all, usually before their due dates.
And yes, even back then, I'd find that certain covers would call to me, saying softly or shouting loudly "read me!" Such a book was author Irene Hunt's "Up a Road Slowly".
I was immediately taken in by the spidery pen and ink drawing of a run-down, yet inviting house, framed by birches and painted in a watercolor wash. The image itself suggested the story promised within: a run-down place, a little melancholy, yet somehow inviting. Who lived in that house? What happened there?
If you're not familiar with the story, the answer to that question is Julia, a bright, creative young girl, and her brother, sent there by their grieving father after their mother died, to live with an old, stern aunt...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_a_Road_Slowly
I loved this book. It took me in and gave me that wonderful experience of living in someone else's world, completely immersed. And my visualization of the characters, the locales, the whole mood of the novel were influenced by that cover.
Flash forward many years to after I graduated from college. My first job was working at a bookstore (I was an English major, after all...) One of the perks of the job was discovering new and wonderful books and re-discovering ones that you'd nearly forgotten about.
Thinking back to childhood favorites, I special ordered a few (OK, more than just a few) titles that I loved, including "Up a Road Slowly".
When the shipment arrived, I was excited. It was like waiting for an old friend to show up. Julia, the old aunt, the ramshackle house (my mental picture: it was a bit threadbare there, but the yard was green and lovely...)
So imagine my surprise when I opened the box and saw this:
(I know that this is a crappy image, but it was the only one I could find of this version online)
What?! Really? Where was the faded Victorian creepiness, where was the melancholy?
If I had seen this cover instead of the one with the strange house, I probably never would have picked the book up, and that would have been a damn shame. But this cover looks like a teenage soap opera, an early 90's teen-girl version of the movie poster for James Dean's film "Giant". A big Texas saga. This place looks dusty and dry, not damp and slightly creepy!
I know that the old cover was just that: old and therefore, "old-fashioned". To give older books new audiences, publishers periodically re-design the covers, and sometimes (many times) that's a good thing.
But what I'm getting around to, slowly but surely, is that I feel like this cover did a wonderful book a disservice. I can imagine someone picking it up, and, like me, judging it by its cover. they'd either put it down because it was unattractive or read it and possibly feel disappointed because the tone of the story doesn't match the image on the front.
I wonder how many good books people never consider reading (or bad books that they read due to a cool cover) because they made that judgement. I guess I still do judge some books by their covers - especially when they change the cover of a book that I have loved!
