Under Cover...

...lies a brilliant novel or not. Whilst combing through the Internet for statistics on book sales and their relations to book cover designs, I found a brilliant piece by Tom Dyckhoff for the Guardian here-http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/history/story/0,6000,552107,00.html. After I read this article I abandoned my search as Tom more than sums up the whole point of my post. His article also chronicles the journey of book cover designs since the 20s till now, and how these designs have changed over the past eight decades.
I know for sure I am guilty of impulse buying in book stores. I remember last year I spent 40pounds on a fashion book I didn't need but found irresistably appealing and suffered for two weeks living on spaghetti and bread sticks. Many of us buy books we have never heard of based on the colours, textures, and words on the cover design. I've asked five people to share this experience starting with dear friend and fellow blogger the notorious Jeremy Weate of http://www.naijablog.blogspot.com/.




“The Amado - has a distinctive cartoonesque cover - a woman with large brown eyes and lips carrying manicured roses. She looks like a brazilian diva leaving the stage to thunderous applause. Who was I to resist buying it?”

“The Alsanea - has a completely distinctive design - each letter is made up of embossed blips that are a little like sequins. They catch the light in an interesting and subtle way. The title, Girls of Riyadh, is semi-concealed by the general patterns on the cover - a nice metaphor for the concealed lives the characters in the novel have. Although the book was in an obscure corner of Heathrow's Borders book shop, and I was tired, it still caught my eye like a jewel shining in a heap of rubbish.”