Judging A Book By Its Cover

It's getting late here and it's become very quiet.  However, I'm surrounded by books with all kinds of cover art on each of them.  And a question has popped into my head... did I buy these books just for the cover art, or to read?  

Well, there are books that I do love to look at and the storyline really does leave a lot to be desired.  But on the other side of the coin, there's also books I bought with the best intention of reading; and never got around to it.

In my collection, I have some great Stephen King books that have brilliant covers, but I don't like reading them.  But then, the ones that have the most ugly covers have the best stories; how ironic is that?  Then, there's books that I have acquired that have the most boring covers and yet the storyline inside is just a boring as the cover.  Then, I've bought a few books of an author - such as Hugh Lunn - and I've never read a single one!  And he's such a great character in writing as well as in person.  But then, there's great classics which have nothing but the title on the cover (you know the Penguin Classics books which are orange and white; very plain really) and yet the story inside is brilliant!  

In fact, I have collected a few John Irving books - who I've been trying to get into - but my brain just seems to enjoy the tactile description of his characters and not the storyline he depicts.  And after around four chapters, I lose interest every time... stupid really... and I really should give those books of his away if I can't get into them.

I have so many books by so many authors that I want to read - but I haven't gotten into - and yet they are all surrounding me in my small home office in their shelves patiently awaiting for me to read them.  However, I still wonder if it's the cover art that pulled me in and not the author's work - their skill as a storyteller - that did it.  

So, what does it for you?  Are you an arty person and pulled in by the pretty pictures on the front of the book; or are you a pure, avid reader and are pulled in by the author and their ability... or are you a bit of both?  I think we are all a bit of both as we are very visual creatures yet we also love a good story to keep our minds active and stimulated.  Until my next post, happy reading!