Friday, January 24, 2020

Book Covers and Things I'm Excited to Read

After today's discussion, I've reflected on the covers that I have on my bookshelf, and what covers I trend towards. In Boston, the majority of books on my shelf are by Kurt Vonnegut or Jonathan Franzen. All of Vonnegut books are the newer, redesigned covers that I think are very good. You've probably seen them in books stores and such:


I'm definitely biased about these covers since I already like the books, but it also reveals the common theme of simple covers, with some nice abstract-y art that's obviously related to the title/content of the book (e.g, the cover of Bluebeard (top right) is a guy with a blue beard(!!)). Thinking about the other books on my shelf or that I've read recently, this pretty much remains true. Another theme is pretentious covers that tell you basically nothing about the book but look cool. 

When I browse for books, I try not to give too much, or any weight, to the cover of the book. I'll save everyone the eye-roll and won't say the classic line. However, it's impossible to browse books without giving the cover at least a little weight, lest you want to spend a few days per section of books. So my attempt at being impartial is to read the blurb of at least one book I wouldn't have normally pick up for every few books I select biasedly. This almost never works.

Yesterday, I made the inaugural library visit for this semester (I guess for this year as well!). I picked up a two books. Mr.Fox by Helen Oyeyemi, and Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru. I've read Helen Oyeyemi's short story collection, What is not Yours is not Yours and thought it was pretty good (though I didn't quite finish all the stories). I have high hopes for these books, especially the second, which is already really funny. Hopefully I'll finish them in a reasonable amount of time and be able to fill everyone in on if they're worth the read or not. Also, if anyone wants to borrow some Vonnegut, I'm happy to lend what I have.

:) Hope everyone has a great weekend.

No comments:

Post a Comment