Tag: book covers

From Twilight to Pride and Prejudice, books that have been made into movies have the movie poster replace the book cover. Usually, I am against owning these. I don’t want everyone to think that I am just reading a book because Anne Hathaway is on the cover. I usually like to read the book before the movie.

With me using eBooks more and more (thus eliminating this problem) books that I buy in paper form have become even more about how they look on the bookshelf…or about how they won’t electrocute me if I drop them in the bathtub. Anyways, it seems like a shame to get rid of the beautiful cover art that has been created with the book in mind. Even the classic penguin covers have an appeal that outweighs Hollywood celebrity.

I think this is a pretty common opinion, but I also know that sometimes I take the cover of a book a little too seriously. My mother, who will probably be the first person to read this post, will remember a trip to Barnes and Noble when I spent almost 20 minutes deciding which copy of The Portable Dorothy Parker. I was probably close to tears as I told her, “I just am so tired of making decisions.” I ended up picking this one, in case you were wondering. Pretty, right?

However, with the seeds of this blog post in my mind, last week at the library I ended up checking a book out almost solely because of the cover. It was Inventing the Abbots, by Sue Miller. While I can, perhaps legitimately claim, that I picked the book up out of a curiosity about my former professor. But that would be a false claim, I’ve had 2 years without expressing the curiosity, and there are more well-known and critically acclaimed works I could have chosen.

No, I picked it up because I saw Liv Tyler and Joaquin Phoenix falling over a car seat and thought “Oh my goodness, there is that movie I used to watch on Lifetime when I was home from school sick.” Now, I’m not sure if I need to rethink my former opinions.

What do you think? Are you more or less likely to read a book with a movie poster for a cover?