As we’ve done for several years now, we thought it might be fun to compare the U.S. and U.K. book cover designs of this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books contenders. Book cover art is an interesting element of the literary world — sometimes fixated upon, sometimes ignored — but, as readers, we are undoubtedly swayed by the little billboard that is the cover of every book we read. And, while many of us no longer do most of our reading on physical books with physical covers, those same cover images now beckon us from their grids in the various online bookstores. From my days as a bookseller, when import titles would sometimes find their way into our store, I’ve always found it especially interesting that the U.K. and U.S. covers often differ from one another. This would seem to suggest that certain layouts and imagery will better appeal to readers on one side of the Atlantic rather than the other. These differences are especially striking when we look at the covers side by side. The American covers are on the left, and the UK are on the right. Your equally inexpert analysis is encouraged in the comments.
Judging Books by Their Covers 2013: U.S. Vs. U.K.
The Ghost in My Hands: On Reading Digital Books
The virtual bookshelf on my Kindle is a list of titles that I've read but never held. These books are just ideas, abstractions, nothing less, nothing more.
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Forty for 40: A Literary Reader for Lent
The Lenten narrative is marked by violence, suffering, anticipation, and finally, joy. Back by popular demand, here is a literary reader for Lent: 40 stories, poems, essays, and books for the 40 days of this season.
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The Physical Book Will Surely Endure: But Will It Endure for the Right Reason?
As an empirical matter, reading on a tablet cannot remotely approach the sensual literary experience offered by an old-fashioned book. The latter is, I’d venture, intrinsically more pleasurable than the former, not unlike the intrinsic difference between high quality toilet paper and the sandpaper stuff used in bus stations.
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Most Anticipated, Too: The Great Second-Half 2016 Nonfiction Book Preview
Break out the beach umbrellas and the sun block. It’s shaping up to be a very hot summer (and fall!) for new nonfiction.
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