Judging Books by Their Covers

At the Washington Post, this: A colorful history of judging books by their covers

Book jackets are, admittedly, a peculiar art. The most memorable ones usually approach a book indirectly. In fact, Salisbury says that “visual metaphor is often more effective than explicit representation in the distillation of the text into image.” At its best, a classic jacket, joining hand-rendered lettering with traditional portraiture and landscape painting, became an appealing glimpse into a book, welcoming readers inside.

So true!

Of course the covers used to illustrate this article are not the ones I instantly think of, because they’re not SFF covers.

There’s this one, referred to but not shown in the article — I googled it because I was curious about the “panoramas that sadly could never have been fully enjoyed while wrapped around T.D. Atkinson’s book.” This is the artwork in question:

I like it a lot. But here is where my mind instantly goes when I think about wonderful cover art:

And of course, more lately, here:

Naturally I am particularly likely to approve of any article in the Washington Post just now, since their staff writers plainly have excellent taste.

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