You know the saying: "Never judge a book by its cover." Yeah, right, I still do it anyways. Sometimes, at least. And come on - don't tell me that you aren't automatically drawn to some books because their cover art manages to touch you in some way or other. Maybe it's just a subconscious thing, but I believe it's almost impossible to totally ignore a book's sleeve. It lures and sways you, even if you may not notice it, and bookshops very deliberately use this to influence your book buying patterns. I know that I've fallen for this many times before (and have actually come across new titles that I might not have approached otherwise through this, so it's not a negative thing for me) C. Max Maggee has recently published a wonderful article on the differences between UK and US book covers, taking a look at how a book's outside appearance is tailored towards its intended audience. Read the whole article HERE.Thursday, 21 February 2013
(Never) judge a book by its cover
You know the saying: "Never judge a book by its cover." Yeah, right, I still do it anyways. Sometimes, at least. And come on - don't tell me that you aren't automatically drawn to some books because their cover art manages to touch you in some way or other. Maybe it's just a subconscious thing, but I believe it's almost impossible to totally ignore a book's sleeve. It lures and sways you, even if you may not notice it, and bookshops very deliberately use this to influence your book buying patterns. I know that I've fallen for this many times before (and have actually come across new titles that I might not have approached otherwise through this, so it's not a negative thing for me) C. Max Maggee has recently published a wonderful article on the differences between UK and US book covers, taking a look at how a book's outside appearance is tailored towards its intended audience. Read the whole article HERE.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Blind Date with a Book
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| (c) SC, welcometobookalley.blogspot.com |
So there's this: I usually have a "free books" box at work, which is where I drop all the books I can't (or don't want to) keep, so students can pick them up and get a free read. As I don't have the shelf space I'd love to have, I think this is the best option to give those books a well-deserved new home. :)
Now that Valentine's Day is fast approaching I decided to give the thing a whole new twist. I got the idea from a guy called Steven Thompson who posted it to the wonderful Book Porn page on Facebook. So tomorrow will be "Blind Date with a Book" Day in my office! All the books are wrapped with little (cryptic) descriptions on the wrapping and people choose a package without knowing what's inside. Then they take their literary "Blind Date" home with them and are in for a surprise read. In case they don't like their "date", they can drop it back into the regular free books box for someone else to pick up later. All this wrapping, drawing and coming up with suitable teasers was a lot of work and I'm already excited to see how this will go.
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