Judging books by their covers

My most recent completed read was Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It was recommended to me by my mostly-cyber-but-also-a-little-in-person friend, Jessica. It was the most beautiful blend of novel and higher education that Jessica knew would be the perfect fit for me.

But I have to admit it. It was the book jacket that got me. I love book jackets. They are colorful and shiny and have lovely emblems or pictures. A book is only as good as its' jacket's graphic designer. In my humble opinion. The jacket of Admission is a fabulous pale yellow with a large A in a fantastic font. The piece de resistance is the ivy (get it? Ivy League...) wrapped cleverly around the A.

Two weeks ago, I dogsat Bella & Tony while Uyen was out of town. Uyen had warned me that Bella loves to eat paper, so when I first began dogsitting her, I made sure I left no paper or books in her reach. One day, I forgot but when I arrived home after work, it did not appear that Bella had consumed any paper products, so I decided it was safe to leave my books on the bottom shelf and other low-lying places.

I was dogsitting Bella & Tony while reading Admission. I had been deeply entrenched in the world of Portia Nathan and the Princeton University admission process when it finally happened. I came home after work to find the jacket of Admission torn to pieces. While the actual book was perfectly salvaged and readable, Admission lost its luster. To me, it was now just a brown book.

Oh, I still read it. I still wanted to know what happened to Portia. But it wasn't the same. The reading experience lost much of its pleasure...all because my beautiful ivy-covered A was no longer there.

To see the cover for yourself, go here.

I have decided to save a little money by checking books out of the library rather than buying them. Right now, I am reading Joe College by Tom Perrotta. I'm experiencing quite a bit of disequlibrium between the exhilaration of reading new books for free, yet not knowing what the covers look like. See, when you check hard-cover books out of the library (pardon me if I am insulting your intelligence by explaining this), they have removed the book jacket. Not only am I missing the aesthetically pleasing book jacket, but I found it nearly impossible to enjoy perusing the aisles of books without the benefit of the synopsis normally provided in the book jacket. I had to rely on the appealing title to guide me.

I didn't get far into Joe College before my concentration broke and I had to know. What does the book jacket look like? Go here if you are just as curious.

Hi, my name is Peggy. And I judge books by their covers.