Spook Country or ... Spook Country?
Friday, February 09, 2007
I know the old saying warns against judging a book by its cover, but what happens when you have to judge which cover to have for a book? I've always been fascinated by the fact that UK and US publishers frequently have covers for their published books which are quite different. William Gibson has been blogging about the covers for his upcoming Spook Country, and they are fairly different ...
[UK]
[US]
Thankfully, I'm pretty sure I prefer the UK version and this is what usually turns up on Australian shelves. When Gibson's previous book, Pattern Recognition came out, I was in the US and was delighted to get a hardback copy at a decent price in its first week of release. Months later, back in Australia, I found the UK cover version (which had a stylised CD case image) which seemed far more in keeping with the book ...
[UK]
[US]
For some reason, despite the same text in both, I've always coveted a UK cover-design copy. I know that's a tad fickle, but it seems to have considerable impact on often a book makes the journey from my shelf to the bedside table.
It this just something that happens to me or do others hunt for their cover-art of choice despite already owning the book?
[Tags: books | williamgibson | covers | patternrecognition | spookcountry]
[UK]
[US]
Thankfully, I'm pretty sure I prefer the UK version and this is what usually turns up on Australian shelves. When Gibson's previous book, Pattern Recognition came out, I was in the US and was delighted to get a hardback copy at a decent price in its first week of release. Months later, back in Australia, I found the UK cover version (which had a stylised CD case image) which seemed far more in keeping with the book ...
[UK]
[US]
For some reason, despite the same text in both, I've always coveted a UK cover-design copy. I know that's a tad fickle, but it seems to have considerable impact on often a book makes the journey from my shelf to the bedside table.
It this just something that happens to me or do others hunt for their cover-art of choice despite already owning the book?
[Tags: books | williamgibson | covers | patternrecognition | spookcountry]
Labels: books, covers, pattern recognition, spook country, william gibson
[Posted by Unknown] [1:57 pm]
4 Comments:
I actively avoid copies with images from the film version, especially if it says in large type "Now a blockbuster film!". But yes, I also actively covet particular cover designs, but it's usually the leather hardback and beautiful plates insides that I want!
For me, book covers from films are okay if I watched (and enjoyed) the film first!
I've noticed with some of Gibsons [and many other] books the publishers later released them with matching covers in a series. Unfortunately they never bother matching up the new books that come out after that print run. So you're left with sort of a matching set and sort of not.
I particularly HATE it when they do the same thing with DVD cases. And the gigantic new australian rating warning logos on dvd slicks totally ruin the artwork.
A bad example is the Star Wars prequels. Eps 1 & 2 came out before the new ratings logo but ep3 after. So when you line them up spines out the ep3 case doesnt match.
GGRRRRR!!!!!!11
UK publishers always do the best cover deign. On the other hand, US publishers always manufacture the better quality hardcover binding.
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