I’ve been a bookworm since elementary school. I’ve read a lot over the past 13 years. When I hit adolescence and started getting into young adult, I heavily started picking books out based on their cover. Almost all of my favorites that I’ve found over the years, I’ve done so by just looking at the cover and seeing if it intrigued me.
One such example was this morning. I live under a rock, so I typically don’t know what books are in. I found Bow to the Elf Queen by JM Pearl for $3 in a thrift store, and I decided to buy it on a whim. I’m now loving it and I want to find the other two books for a hopefully inexpensive price.
by demytriah
12 Comments
I prejudge books by very different & very strict standards, so no from me. I download epub files from Wikisource, like John Stuart Mill’s autobiography, so most of the books I read don’t have covers. PS I use an epub file converter extension. Iit’s faster than Wikisource’s internal downloader, which has a timeout.
Nope. That’s why covers exist: to catch your eye and maybe encourage you to read the summary-hook on the back
I’ve thought about this before. I just don’t know how else I’m supposed to walk into a bookstore with tens of thousands of unique titles and expect completely unknown books to catch my eye in a way other than having a cover that stands out.
Nope. I will pick a book to read based on it’s cover 9 out of 10 times – even if I like the author.
I judged the first wheel of time book by its cover. I thought it looked cool and it’s my favorite series of all time now.
The covers one job is to communicate what it is to the type of people likely to read it. The expression should be “you can’t always trust in the skill of the book cover designer”
That’s literally the function of a book cover
The only time I do judge a book by its cover if it has one of those “Now a major motion picture” stickers. Or something like it
All the time. I feel a little bad about it but whatever lol. It’s moreso that I avoid books because I hate the cover than I read something because I like the cover so much 😂
You’re not alone. I do it too. I feel like I shouldn’t, but I still do.
No. No you’re not alone. This is how I find my books. Don’t read blurbs much if ever. Never read reviews. Cover is it.
I am judgemental about covers. Then again, I am less likely to pick a badly done, amateurish cover art than a neutral, minimalist designed one.
My choice to read books boils down to whether I would be interested after reading the sample.