This morning, literary critic Michelle Dean penned an article for Flavorwire assailing the purpose and usefulness of dust jackets, those glossy outer shells of hardcover books. Not one to judge a book ...

When you bring into your home a newly acquired book, you will soon find yourself spending cherished moments of interest, adventure and enjoyment. And as the saying goes, "There's only one thing better ...

In the 19th century, dust jackets on books were just protective paper wrappers, thrown away after a book was purchased. The prized cover was the leather underneath, and although some of these bindings ...

We are cautioned to avoid judging a book by its cover, yet that is precisely what publishers hope we will do. Dust-jacket (book cover) illustration, which came into its own in the 1920s, has long ...

The band’s moniker is a reference to the jacket of an old hardback book, and front man Conan Zimmerman is an avid reader of literary legends like Salinger, Hemingway, and Chekhov. It’s no surprise, ...

Poet Mark Strand calls dust-jacket photos “the door to the dark room of the imagination.” Even though a writer’s looks have little to do with the words he or she puts down on paper, many a reader, ...

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s hard not to judge a cover by its design. This week, “The Accursed,” the giant new gothic novel by Joyce Carol Oates, provides a surprising study in ...

What makes an outstanding book cover? The Book Jacket Designers Guild of the 1940s and ’50s defined the art as the “successful integration of concept with graphic means … and expression of the spirit ...

This is a very difficult topic that I’m afraid I may get emotional over, so I beg the audience’s indulgence if I become overwrought. It has come to my attention that for some reason, some people — and ...

The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 chronicles the rise of the book dust jacket from disposable object to a creative platform for publishing design. “In view of its origins as a plain protection to ...

BENGALURU: When I visited the John Steinbeck Center in Salinas in January 2024, it was the 75th year since the publication of Grapes of Wrath, the definitive novel on the Great Depression. I was ...