I DO judge books by their covers · Posted Jul 25, 11:55 AM by Todd Babiak
The Book of Stanley comes out in softcover in a couple of weeks. It’s a terrific design, even a little racy; I hope readers notice it.
In a story in the newspaper yesterday, I read that the Calgary Public Library saw a huge jump in book-trying when the cover faced out. Presumably, an attractive cover is better than a boring or ugly cover. Presumably.
As a writer, I know how the cover thing works. A novelist finishes and hands in her book. A designer at the publishing house is assigned to the project, and comes up with ideas. Then, a design is chosen. The writer doesn’t usually see the design until everyone at the house is happy with it. Go ahead, writer, be an asshole and reject it.
A boring or ugly cover should not reflect poorly on the writer or the book, the way loafers with tassels reflect poorly on middle managers. Even though I know better, I do make unfair judgments, as though the boring or ugly cover were exactly like tasseled loafers — a writer’s choice.
I still buy novels according to their covers. Or at least I’ll pick them up and read the description. If it’s a poetic and humourless ode to a Canada that once was, and the fascinatingly mysterious identities of the protagonists, with backstory chapters in the old country, in which very little happens outside of a slow emotional revelation of what it means to be Canadian, or not Canadian after all, I’m unlikely to buy the book. Even though it has, invariably, won several major prizes.
In the past few months, I have paid attention to my novel-buying habits. Covers matter. Reviews matter, though they don’t have to be positive. Blubs, not so much.
The Book of Stanley is in development as a television series for CBC. I wrote the pilot, with a terrific story editor. I could still be fired from the project, of course, and it’s unwise to expect these things will actually make it on TV one day. I have TV-writing aspirations. But my great hope, in the beginning, was that a lovely television show would steer more readers to the novel.
But it turns out I rarely buy novels that have been adapted. The one I can think of is The Wonder Boys , by Michael Chabon. Perhaps this is because the movies, or television shows, don’t properly represent the nuances in novels. The novel-ishness of novels. They can’t, and I suppose we’re wrong to expect it.
I’ve been looking at Richard Price and George Pelecanos since watching The Wire , as they wrote many of the scripts. Perhaps that is a better affinity, between novels and visual media. We can find a zone or a consciousness that we enjoy, if not a perfect relationship between the movies or television shows we like, and the books we like. That is probably the same affinity a novel shares with its cover, a middle manager with his loafers.
commenting closed for this article
A haunted house The new book I've started, and its inevitabilities
I rather like boring covers, and when I see people reading something with an obscure cover, I always ask them what they are reading. :-)
But, there is something to be said for a well-designed and thought out cover.
— Aaron Aug 12, 01:23 PM #