If the cover is boring or not well designed, I may skip a book entirely.

If a book has a great cover design and is one I’ve never heard of, I may check it out solely based on the cover.

If a book has multiple different covers due to re-releases or film versions being published, I may intentionally seek out one design I prefer over all the rest. My stark and simplistic Dune cover was one I searched for more than a decade to find after realizing I accidentally got rid of my original copy.

I picked up a book recently from the withdraw racks at my library. Sounded interesting and the cover was… okay. But I got it home and prepared to read it by taking the dust jacket off it (I hate wearing down dust jackets) and that’s when I saw this…

The hardcovers of books underneath dust jackets rarely get any consideration in this day and age. While this one is not perfect (I’d prefer equal margin on all four sides), it’s mostly awesome. I love it and am so happy they did do something nice.

Now I just hope the book is equally good.