You must judge a book by its cover!
Through the agency of words, artworks, pictures and designs, books engage with the ethos and crises of our times. They are also a hinge that pivots us into old and new eras. This task of creating, recording, collecting and saving is called “content” by some in Botswana and other places.
But, everyone who now talks excitedly about “content” must know that they really draw on the nature of, the reason for, and the appeal of books.
In any case, only books contain a contents page and at the beginning for that matter! Inside them, books hold every conceivable human interest, from literature, history, sciences, art, pictures, morality, ambition, up to angst. This makes books good for us in many respects.
Actually, over the centuries, books have been deemed to improve or enlighten us, or to make us more interesting or at least that has always been the hope or quest regarding them. Because we need to devote time and attention to read a book, our focus on it is deliberate.
Once opened, a book’s page must retain our interest a little longer than an online post. We are likely not to skip a book’s page as quickly or dismissively as we would an online post. Because it is precious and delightful to us, we won’t easily get rid of a book by punching a “delete” button on some keyboard. Simply put, deliberation is necessary to read a book; thoughtfulness is required to skip the pages of a book that has been opened; effort is essential if a book is to be torn; and willpower is needed to ignore a book whose reading has not been completed.
Through their books and having read them, a reader may be perceived as serious and attractive. That is the psychological bonus of it all! Yet, ironically, it is still possible to be dismissed for saying a lot about one’s books and the extent of reading them.
(In contrast, in February, the UK’s Financial Times reported that books reach bestseller lists more by the word of mouth of readers recommending them, and less because of the deployment of algorithms or aggressive campaigns to promote them.) Against the pervasiveness of online creative works, and because physical books can be deemed to be a revolt against them, it is not surprising that one’s books and their reading of them evoke derision in some quarters. This derision may be charges of elitism, or oddity or backwardness for those who still prefer physical books and are freed from the vice grip of social media platforms. Of course, these charges are baseless.
Technology may have upended a lot of things. But the essence of a book still endures. Every book contains a cover. In fact, there are times when one is drawn to a book by the artistic plotline contained in its cover than to anything else. Sometimes a book’s cover, being irresistible, is the real reason why one may want to read that particular book. At times, a book cover may be hard or soft, and thus require different levels of care. Sometimes a book’s cover stokes the fantasy of one’s own high expectations about words, art, pictures and levels of creativity that lie inside that book. At times, that cover strengthens one’s faith in a book as constituting the expanding realm of their enlightenment. Because one would have spent money or effort or time in acquiring a book, one always expects that its contents must be worthy of those charges and equal to the task of improving the goods of the mind.
Like a portraitist, book covers typically depict their subject matters this way or that way, refracting a moment in time, until the light of that moment catches it right. Thus, for our infancy, the covers of our books largely depicted sketches of children being children.
The book covers of our teens often depicted science and humanities symbols, and for literature, artful works. Here I recall the staple reading of those years, as prescribed school texts but often for our leisure, and in sizes that allowed them to fit in the pockets of our attire: the Mills and Boons, Pacesetter, African Writers and Penguin series’ books.
Now, the book covers of our middle age show a medley of images, pictures and abstract works. Those, and there are many of us, who are dispirited by the size of the so-called pocket size literature books of nowadays, may accept this. They aren’t pocket sized any longer, but like their predecessors, their book covers still affirm books as experiential ventures in many senses.
A book cover typically affects the purchasing choice of prospective book buyers. For that reason, while a good book cover encourages the purchase of that book, a tasteless book cover sends unintended signals that the book ought not to be bought. If invention is the job of an author, understanding is the job of a reader. As a reader of a book, one becomes interested in this invention, from the cover of the book to the contents of the book.
On its cover, a book may allow one to see signs of humanity. Inside the cover, a book may prompt one to start an interaction with the strangest of circumstances. In either case, a good book cover and the book’s contents pull off an absurd power over readers. They tempt readers to follow it far from their preconceptions to the book’s own thesis. This is not the same as agreeing with it, but it is allowing their understanding alongside its difference.
A good book cover is typically consistent with the creative work inside the book. It may contain impressionistic designs, illustrations and images that convey what the book is about without being literal. It may have an authoritative, clean and evocative look that complements the book’s typography and layout, appropriately playful or serious as the context requires.
When it is done correctly, a book cover often adds to the joy of owning and reading a book, and it can draw immeasurable attention to any place where the book lies.
This confirms the notion that book covers can also be one’s private high art. If the contents of books are the evidence of how inquisitive readers’ minds can be, their book covers give a rambunctious account of the company that readers keep between covers!