Book cover love

In case you haven’t guessed, I have a lot of nerdy interests, and there’s one that brings them all together - book covers.

Yes. My strange history of doing 180s career wise, side quests with hobbies and a dollop of ADHD has met in this often overlooked art form.

Book covers are not just a marketing tool, but a chance to look at a snapshot of time. It shows trends (real or imagined) and what the average person actually consumed.

In a past life I studied History of Art, and while I love(d) the grandeur of big, bombastic pieces commissioned for churches, castles and stately homes. I have always preferred the art of the people. This is why Albrecht Durer is - probably - my favourite artist. His work was not only revolutionary (Cf. his wonky-eyed self-portrait), but he made art for the masses as well as the elite. His woodcuts, which are ironically very expensive now, were deliberately cheap and mass produced so any person who could scrape together the money could buy them. 

This is what I think book covers do. They offer the average person a chance to have something beautiful and well designed in their home. I think the proliferation of special editions (beyond being a money grab from publishers, but that’s a rant for another day) proves this. 

People want art in their lives. 

Even if they don’t know it.

I know, I know. This is beginning to sound like a lecture about how “anti-intellectualism is ruining the world”, but I don’t want to be too holier than thou. I love mass media and I love how our interest and associated value of it changes. This has been a keen fascination of mine, long before I made visual art (there’s still some vestiges of this on the internet. Proceed with caution), wrote or did much of anything, other than play The Sims and watch The O.C. I have always obsessively read and watched critiques about art and popular culture. Given most of this was in the early age of the internet we know and love/hate, I’d watch A LOT of documentaries and read newspapers and magazines. I think part of my interest stems from the fact that there weren't a lot of ways to consume media. You could go to the cinema, read books, newspapers, magazines and rent films, but everything cost money. It was hard to come by, very controlled, and often refracted through someone else’s ideas. 

I think this is why I’m still so driven in my cultural consumption. I like to surround myself with artifacts (not as much as my husband though. The man is single handedly keeping analogue formats alive). While I primarily read e-books, special ones get a print copy added to my shelf. (These are either books I love or second hand ones that intrigue me).

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here are some book covers I love…