A renaissance in book cover art?

I’ve been mulling, recently, over the idea of getting a Kindle. I have a birthday coming up, after all, and have been known to use those (and Christmas) as an excuse to buy a new piece of kit. Smart phones, netbooks – I think one year I even timed getting a new desktop computer to coincide with my birthday. Because, frankly, I love technology. If I had a bigger disposable income (or wasn’t actively paying off debts instead of building them up), I would have a whole bunch more technology. As yet, though, I have still not succumbed to the eReader pull. I don’t have a Kindle, Sony Reader or Kobo – or any other eBook reading device (well, technically, I can read them on my HTC Windows Phone or on my netbook or, indeed, on my computer, but I don’t really want to).

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading the Review section in Saturday’s Guardian and came across a book I really, really wanted to read. I had thought it was a paperback, but when I looked it up on Amazon, I found that it was actually only just out in hardback. I looked at the price of the hardback and then at the price of the Kindle version and thought ‘Ah-ha! There’s the benefit to having a Kindle.’ – in fact, I tweeted this thought (I promise, I don’t tweet all of my thoughts. Honestly. Really, I don’t.)

Hmm. Benefit to having Kindle – paperback price at time of hardback release. I want this http://amzn.to/pO9u7P, but don’t want hardback. 🙁

If I’m honest, it was probably less about the price, though that is, of course, always a factor in any purchasing decision, and more about the size and heftiness of hardbacks. A lot of my reading is done, while breastfeeding and I generally have to hold the book up in one hand, which is a doddle with a paperback, but less easy with a hardback. It’s also harder to hold a hardback up in the air above you to read while lying in bed or on the grass in the sun (though, these days, I can’t actually do either of these without falling asleep – however brilliant and gripping the book). I had a little Twitter conversation with @MTJAM (of More Than Just a Mother), who has recently got a Kindle and is loving it. Another friend, @phyllismahon, who is an illustrator and avid reader, got a Sony Reader recently (and has not long ago changed to a Kindle) and is dashing through books via the medium.

I was feeling the pull a bit stronger. If these devourers of books could make the switch, perhaps I could too? Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to feel the paper under my fingers. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to have shelves and shelves of books to stare at, to run my fingers over, to run my eyes over? Perhaps I would be able to read more if I had a light-weight piece of technology to read on, rather than a big heavy book?

But I didn’t. After all, it would have cost a lot more to buy a Kindle and the Kindle version of The Night Circus. Instead, I ordered the hardback. And a few other books, too, while I was at it. (I did check the library catalogue, by the way, but they had no copies in the county.) I think the big box of books is probably one of my favourite packages to receive.

And I am so pleased that I bought the hardback, because it was beautiful. Truly beautiful. The cover, and the inside art, mirrored the story so well that they were able to draw me in and focus me back in before sitting down to another reading session. I frequently stopped to look at the cover again (something I’ve noticed Rosemary often does with the chapter books I read to her, as well as her school reading books) while I was in the middle of reading. I think there is no question at all that the illustrator had read the book before drawing the cover.

But it’s not just the cover art that pleased me. The feel of the book as a whole – the binding, the thicker paper, the integral bookmark (red which, when you read the book, you will see is a perfect touch) and even the art on the inside cover, under the dust jacket.

None of this would I have experienced with the Kindle version.

It has struck us, recently, that publishers of hardbacks often seem to be pushing out the boat a lot in terms of presentation – stunning cover art, superior paper stock, integral bookmarks, gilding, embossing and so on, with the best ones really getting to the heart of the book they’re enveloping. Are they perhaps doing so in part to counteract the (often) cheaper digital versions being available for immediate download?

Yesterday, Chris and I both impulse-bought a book, in no small part due to their covers:

 

A prize if you can guess which is mine and which is Chris’s. (OK, no prize. Sorry. Just some kind of kudos and the chance to feel a little smug, perhaps.)

 

So, no, I won’t be getting a Kindle just yet. If I do ever succumb, I suspect I will follow Edward Stourton’s lead and “if I buy and like a book on Kindle, I shall almost certainly buy a hardback copy too”.

 

Have you seen any beautiful covers recently? Have you noticed publishers putting more into their hardcover presentation recently? Have you read digital versions of any of these and are there any enhancements that have a similar effect?

 

This has been a Sunday Reading post.