Ponderance

(May 2003 - March 2007.) Tama's thoughts on the blogosphere, podcasting, popular culture, digital media and citizen journalism posted from a laptop computer somewhere in Perth's isolated, miniature, urban jungle ...

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?

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