To judge a book by its cover?

[HappyYoni]

Just that really. I read a book recently which I really enjoyed, saw there was a sequel on amazon and was quite excited to read it so downloaded it. Then I caught a glimpse of the cover. It made it look like such a tacky pile of trash that now I am really conflicted over whether I want to read it or not on the one hand the first book was v enjoyable, on the other hand it looks like such crap!!

Am I perhaps the shallowest reader on MN?

Yippeeee! I've just finished The Siege and it's the best book I've read in ages. Now I know there's a sequel thanks to your post. HURRAH.

It is a truly dreadful cover though. Blimey what was she thinking?

If you liked the first, read the second, irrespective of the cover.

Typical English eccentricity illustrated - never judge a book by its cover, even have a proverb for it, then pay designers and marketers a hefty whack to give all books a cover to pique peoples' interest.

The stupidest thing is that I'll be reading it on a kindle so won't even have to look at the cover! It's just knowing it's there tho. Anyway I have started reading it today and it seems ok, although I don't think I will enjoy it as much as the Siege just on principle

Pawan that is a truly dreadful cover. Maybe we should start a thread on books with awful covers that are actually a very good read...there could be a whole world of amazing literature out there hidden behind terrible covers.

Helen Dunmores Betrayal while perhaps not quite as enjoyable as The Siege is certainly not a trashy read .Follows the post war story of the characters

I tend to choose books by their covers... And I work in a library. :o

farewellfigure - the author has nothing to do with the covers so Helen Dunmore may well be as appalled by it as you. You can lay the blame squarely at the door of the publisher's jacket designers and the marketing team. I'm an editor and I'm sometimes baffled by what I'm presented with when it comes to the covers of books I've worked on. Often it seems to bear no relation to the content and I wonder if they've even bothered read the proofs.

Have to agree there. And what's with the wannabe Cyrillic letters? Y in Cyrillic alphabet is U and those letters that look like A are really a D, so the title reads as Betrdudl or Vetrdudl (as B is a V). Bloody ridiculous.

Susan Howatch is one of my favourite authors and the covers of her books are really embarrassing!! I have read them all anyway.

There's a book store in America which wraps all books in brown parcel paper and twin. Writing only the tittle and blurb on them.

So YABU - if you read the first one and enjoyed it. It's a daft reason to not read it.