Auntie Janey
Covers do matter. We prize books for what’s inside them, but the way they look can influence our decision to read them. It’s not simply shallowness: books are still physical objects, subject to design principles. (If you prefer e-books, this is not your problem.)
Consider the Penguin Classics Deluxe editions. Whenever I go to Fully Booked I have to remind myself that I already own a copy of Pride and Prejudice and really do not need another one even if it is pretty. But it’s a struggle.
What is it about Jane Austen? There’s an entire publishing sector devoted to spinoffs of Pride and Prejudice: P&P as told by Mr. Darcy, the diaries of Mr. Darcy, the adventures of the Bennett-Darcy kids, P&P + Zombies and so on. Bridget Jones’s Diary is an hommage and so is Metropolitan, Clueless is a modern-day version of Emma, and I’m surprised no one’s doing Persuasion in modern dress. To think that critics have always sniped at Austen for ignoring the political events of her day (Napoleon does not turn up to knock Bingley off his horse). Could it be that that is why we love her?
Today at National Bookstore I spotted this:
The Winchester Austen—new editions of P&P, S&S, Northanger Abbey and Emma that look like large Moleskine notebooks. I had to back away from the shelf.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 27th, 2009 at 08:50
This blog post is to blame for the pool of saliva on my desk.
That, and the series of drops with increasing distance towards Fully Booked in Promenade.
August 27th, 2009 at 09:02
Growing up I was starved for books; my parents couldn’t buy enough to feed the voracious reader that I was. Now I’m guilty of buying them on sight, and yes the pretty cover does influence the decision. Or sometimes, the catchy title. Or the blurb on the back, even.
I have come home, on more than on occasion, laden with loot from various bookstores, to be told that I already have this book, and 2 exact copies of this other one, and maybe a hardbound of yet this other paperback. Sad, but true. My memory is failing.
I would so buy that Winchester Austen, if only for the way it looks.
August 28th, 2009 at 21:09
I want the Winchester Austen editions… Right. Now. I can’t help but stare at the picture.
I think Austen kind of mentioned Napoleonic Wars in Persuasion. Not directly but it was the setting, if my memory serves me right.
Funny, S. Meyer’s book is in the background when you took Pride and Prejudice’s picture. I read a quote in her interview where she says her protagonists’ love story is better than P&P and then continues on to bash other classics. But I digress.