The age old adage states that 'you can't judge a book by its cover.' However, sometimes there is little alternative. Maybe library access is lacking, or there is little time to flip through a book before purchase, maybe the book is just needed and it is and needed it now. In this case, the cover is actually the best way to judge a book, if one knows how. There are three main points to consider when doing so:
- Cover art
- Title
- Blurbs.
Cover Art
Cover art actually says a great deal about a book. Time and money are put into selecting both artist and image. A romance novel will often have a cover incorporating images suggestive of either sex or romance. A fantasy novel can have a sword wielding barbarian on the cover (historical fiction or sword and sorcery), an image of elves and racecars (urban fantasy), etc. Right away, the cover art provides information about the book's:
- Theme
- Sub-genre
- Mood
As well, some ideas as to plot or at least general story area.
Cover Art can also provide a hint as to whether or not a book will resonate with personal tastes. Similar books will often use similar art (or even the same cover artist). An enjoyable book with a particular style of cover art might suggest that it is worth trying another, to see if the correlation pans out. If it has worked in the past, it might again.
Title
Simply put, a bad title can ruin a book, while a good one helps set theme and expectation and can, at times, provide more information. Take the following examples.The Last Unicorn as a title tells you that you are probably safe in assuming there will be a unicorn, it will be the last of its kind, and the book will have a melancholy tone to it for all or part of the narrative. Cooking with Pooh, on the other hand, suggests a cookbook (possibly involving a loveable bear), but also suggests something else entirely.
Blurbs
Blurbs are reviews, teaser passages (usually found on the first page inside the front cover) and plot summaries (usually found on the back cover). These are the most useful tools for evaluating a given book, as they provide other people's reactions to the book, a taste of the writer's prose style and a brief preview of what one can expect when reading the book.
Taking in all of these factors will usually take less than two minutes, and can provide a solid basis from which to make a judgment as to whether or it may be worth it to invest both time and money in the novel in question. It is as simple as that. Most of the time, the conclusion reached will be a sound one, proving that sometimes one can indeed judge a book by its cover. The times that the decision is wrong, well, those account for the old adage mentioned above.
