Judging a Book by Its Cover : Fans, Publishers, Designers, and the Marketing of Fiction (review).

In addition to the yellowed, faded ground designed to emulate the ages appearance of used books, this book’s front cover shows two different 1957 thumbnail covers for Phillip K. Dick’s Eye in the Sky, each of which interprets its subject literally. Juxtaposed, the two thumbnails present a pair of eyes staring out with great alarm at the potential reader of Judging a Book by it’s Cover. This cover tells us that this is a book about books, visuality, and populist genres. On the back, the blurb proclaims “This exciting collection opens up a new field of enquiry for scholars of book history, literature, media and communication studies, marketing, and cultural studies.” Clearly, for graphic design historians, the analysis of book covers is not new; this anthology presents a welcome incursion into graphic design history terrain by an interdisciplinary group of scholars.